Re: [Vala] New Graphviz code (libgvc)

[Al Thomas <astavale yahoo co uk>]

> On Sunday, 8 October 2017, 20:12:11 BST, Guido Trentalancia <guido trentalancia com> wrote: 

> I have noticed that vala version 0.38 has added code that depends on> the Graphviz software package (libgvc 
> dependency).

> would it be possible to make such support optional by a new option for the configure script ?

Please see https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=787375

It looks like the license for Graphviz is now the Eclipse Public License, but the Common Public License in 
the past. See http://www.graphviz.org/Download.php
My own thinking is Vala should switch to a charts interface in valadoc and include a null implementation. 
This then allows the null or Graphviz implementation to be selectable. It also allows for an alternative 
implementation in the future. The valadoc charts implementation is used to create object hierarchy diagram as 
seen at valadoc.org. The current implementation can output these as SVG, PNG and also HTML image map. The 
HTML image map gives the tooltips that appear in the valadoc.org diagrams. So an alternative implementation 
is not that simple.
Regards,
Al