Thanks for explaining -- I see the problem now (my backup system uses modtime+size and could be affected by this too...), and my new preference for solving this is to implement the 'binNMUs should be replaced by easy "no-change-except-debian/changelog-uploads' idea from the #894441 title, although I suspect there are objections to that. Anything involving BinNMU's seems complex and brittle, and the entire concept seems problematic for many reasons to me. /Simon tor 2026-04-16 klockan 11:08 +0200 skrev Helmut Grohne: > Hi Simon, > > On Thu, Apr 16, 2026 at 11:02:33AM +0200, Simon Josefsson wrote: > > That all sounds okay, except I don't follow why the final *.deb has > > to > > have the SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH modtime too? > > The modification time we were talking about was the one of installed > files. I don't know whether the .deb's modification time is clamped > nor > am I aware of any problems around its modification time. > > > What would break if you went back to setting SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH to > > the > > last non-binNMU debian/changelog source timestamp entry AND set the > > modtime of the resulting *.deb's to the timestamp of the binNMU > > changelog timestamp? > > Ian's backup system. > > Installed files would be changing content while not changing their > modification time. The backup system would treat them as unchanged > and > skip them. His backup is inconsistent as a result. > > Helmut
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