IfAQ (Infrequently Asked Questions)
$Id: IFAQ.txt,v 1.2 2005/08/07 07:12:46 cozman Exp $

--basic questions--

Q. What is Photon?
A. Photon is an API which is designed primarily to ease creation of hardware 
    accelerated 2D games with OpenGL and other open source & cross platform 
    libraries. Photon aims to simplify portable game development, enabling 
    developers to focus on the gameplay. Photon uses OpenGL for hardware 
    accelerated rotation, alpha blending, resizing, and drawing. Photon is built
    entirely on free software, using libraries like GLFW, PhysFS, OpenAL, and 
    boost. Using Photon does not require knowledge of any of these libraries as
    their needed functionality is wrapped entirely within Photon’s rich class 
    library so that anyone with a decent grasp of C++ can use Photon.
   Photon is a cross platform API, designed to run on as many operating systems 
    as possible, and OS support is only limited by libraries which Photon 
    depends on, at the moment Photon should run on Windows, Linux, OSX, and 
    other Operating Systems which have OpenGL support. 

Q. Where do I get Photon?
A. http://photon.sourceforge.net is the home page.
   http://sourceforge.net/projects/photon/ is the project page.

Q. How do I build Photon?
A. At the moment building photon relies upon SCons.  See INSTALL.txt for more
    information.  Visual C++ project files are a priority as well.

--usage questions--

Q. How do I compile a Photon application?
A. That depends upon your compiler, this isn't a sufficient answer is it?
   To Be Completed

Q. Are there any tutorials?
A. No.  Well not yet, I do have intent to write basic tutorials on using
    Photon, as well as porting some existing tutorials on various subjects to
    Photon.

Q. I am using Photon, can I tell the world?
A. Sure, if you're using it and you feel comfortable admitting that, I admire
    your honesty.  In all seriousness, this is greatly appreciated, and greatly
    beneficial to the Photon community, the more people using it the more people
    to help find bugs, suggest features, and maybe some of them will think of
    something cool to add for the rest of us.

--licensing questions--

Q. How is Photon licensed?
A. Photon is licensed under a zlib-style license, see LICENSE.txt.  

Q. Why is Photon licensed like that, why not use LGPL or something?
A. First of all, I prefer zlib licensed libraries, as you can see, Photon      
    depends primarily on zlib licensed libraries.  I also don't feel that I 
    should try to restrict what people do with Photon, as the people who will 
    try to steal work aren't going to care what license it was under in the    
    first place.

Q. I don't get it. What can I do with Photon?
A. You are allowed to do almost anything you want with Photon including use it 
    in commercial applications.

Q. So what can't I do with Photon?
A. You cannot claim you wrote it, distribute altered versions that are not
    clearly marked as such, or remove or alter the license of the Photon
    source.  You also cannot sue me for damages if Photon hurts you, your 
    pet, or your feelings.

Q. Does Photon use proprietary libraries like DirectX?
A. Photon only uses free open source libraries, so that by using Photon you are
    not subjected to any proprietary licensing terms.

Q. When will features X, Y, and Z be completed?
A. When I get to them, I can only work on Photon in my spare time, if you have a
    specific request let me know and I can give you an estimate of when I plan 
    on getting to it.  There's always the option that you help out and then the 
    feature will be added sooner rather than later.

Q. What if I have something to add?
A. Feel free to contribute to Photon, bugfixes are greatly appreciated.  Not
    all submitted features can be accepted, but I'll usually at least add a
    link to your submission if it cannot be included in the standard 
    distribution for some reason. (Extensions to Photon which uses non-free
    or non-portable libraries fall into this category, I appreciate them
    but usually won't make them part of the standard distribution.)

--history questions--

Q. Photon seems familiar.. where have I seen a similar API before?
                or
    You ripped off that ZEngine guy! 
A. Photon used to be ZEngine, but when I decided to do a major rewrite the name
    changed.  I am the author of both ZEngine and Photon, but thank you for your
    concern.

Q. Why shouldn't I use ZEngine?
A. Photon does practically everything ZEngine did, but is being actively 
    developed. Photon also uses a fairly different design than ZEngine, which I 
    hope most will enjoy.

Q. Why should I use ZEngine?
A. In case you want to port to a platform with no OpenGL, or maybe you like
    the letter 'Z' before every class name.  If you hate the new style, and 
    would prefer to kick it old school, ZEngine is a fine choice.

Q. Wasn't there some GUI lib for ZEngine?
A. Yes, Gewi was the GUI for ZEngine, and was separate from the core of
    ZEngine.  In Photon Gewi will become photon::gui, but is not yet completed.
    Because of the modular core method and resource management, the inside has 
    been rewritten, and a number of bugs have been fixed.  photon::gui will be
    a major improvement over Gewi.

--other questions--

Q. You are a king, can I give you money?
A. Sure.. I guess, I'd prefer you donate it to a better project than Photon
    but if you have to donate money to me because you're using Photon in some
    amazing application and you feel guilty making millions off of my "hard"
    work.. email me, I'll try to talk you out of it, or suggest a better use
    of funds.

Q. How can I be as great as you?
A. Help me out on Photon.. write some documentation, anything, if you're not 
    sure how to help, email me, I'll let you know what needs to be done.

Q. What else do you work on, besides Photon?
A. That's a secret right now.

Q. Want to work on something with me?
A. Depending on how much time I have, and how interested I am in the project, 
    maybe.  If you want me to work on something I'd love to hear from you,
    even if I don't have time at the moment.  If the project in question
    uses Photon you get bonus points, but is not a requirement for me to work
    with you.

    -James Turk <cozman@users.sf.net>
