External dependency proposal: Vala

[Ryan Lortie <desrt desrt ca>]

Hi

I'd like to propose Vala as an official external dependency for GNOME
2.30.

Some GNOME modules are already using Vala, but they are placing
generated .c/.h files into version control to avoid the need for other
contributors to have Vala installed.  That's just ugly. :(

Using Vala to compile a program introduces no additional run-time
dependencies (Vala produces straight-up GLib-based C code).

In its typical use, Vala also introduces no additional dependencies for
building tarballs; distributions will have no additional burden placed
on them.  This is because 'make dist' typically includes the
generated .c and .h files into the tarball, making 'valac' only required
for building from git (or, of course, if you change .vala files).

This is therefore a 'special' external dependency: it would only be
required when building from git (or hacking on the code).

It makes sense that we depend on the most recently available version at
this point -- 0.7.7.

Thanks for your consideration

Cheers