Upcoming mapnik-vector-tile/node-mapnik@3.5.0 have dropped the libprotobuf/protoc dependency. This means that future Mapnik SDKs will no longer need to build and bundle this dep. I think this is true for OSRM as well.
Let's pause on moving on this for a few weeks however as we may still need to do a few release of the current node-mapnik series (v3.4.x) which will always require this dep.
Upcoming mapnik-vector-tile/node-mapnik@3.5.0 have dropped the libprotobuf/protoc dependency. This means that future Mapnik SDKs will no longer need to build and bundle this dep. I think this is true for OSRM as well.
Let's pause on moving on this for a few weeks however as we may still need to do a few release of the current node-mapnik series (v3.4.x) which will always require this dep.
/cc @BergWerkGIS per your question at https://github.com/mapbox/mapnik-vector-tile/issues/1#issuecomment-176036836