Re: Rant about Debian reproducibility environment

[Steffen Nurpmeso <steffen@sdaoden.eu>]

Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> wrote:
 |On Fri, Mar 2, 2018 at 1:17 AM, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
 |> I try to make it short, but i want to say i am thankful for the
 |> spark that reproducible-build.org was for me.  Even though i think
 |> it is a pity that $SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH is the sole indicator for
 |> reproducible environments, since now that programs can adapt..,
 |
 |Packages should be reproducibly buildable even when S_D_E is not set.
 |It only exists as a workaround for packages that insist on embedding
 |timestamps, but this practice should not be encouraged.

Yes it is.  But it is nice to have this generic standardized
mechanism we can build upon.  Setting it results in reproducible
behaviour (timestamp, random output, machine-, user-, hostname is
replaced).  It was the missing link to create a good test
environment.

 |>   And, of course, if there is a different kernel version, or
 |>   a different uname(1) output as such, then how could a dumb end
 |>   producer[consumer, the author] like S-nail deal with that?  We
 |>   hardwire those attributes into the binary, like many other
 |>   programs do, e.g., "mutt(1) -v" output.
 |> ...
 |>   Honestly, i do not think that having "Debian" as the sole
 |>   identifier in output of for example "s-nail -Xversion -Xx" just
 |>   to satisfy a broken reproducibility test can be useful.
 |
 |I'd suggest you obtain those values at runtime rather than at build
 |time, since you probably care more about the values at former than the
 |latter?

Like i have said in the other mail, yes and no.  I will add
uname(2), but keep uname(1), too.  Better that is.

Ciao!

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)