[ARROW-16739] [C++][Flight] Investigate use of protobuf "lite" library

• Type: Wish
• Status: Open
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Component/s: C++, FlightRPC
• External issue URL: https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/32077
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Antoine Pitrou
• Created: 02/Jun/22 15:59
• Updated: 11/Jan/23 11:46

Description

In addition to the full protobuf C++ library, there is also a "lite" variant of the library that provides a subset of the full functionality (for example, the message class is MessageLite instead of Message).

gRPC seems to have support for using that lite protobuf library: https://github.com/grpc/grpc/issues/15604#issuecomment-409690403

Hopefully it could decrease generated code size and also compile times for bundled gRPC builds. It would also make some pieces of functionality, such as reflection, unavailable.