[rb-general] Source code timestamps

[Ludovic Courtès]

Ian Jackson <ijackson at chiark.greenend.org.uk> skribis:

> The only ways I can think of to make the timestamps in a .deb not
> depend on the timestamps in the source tree are:
>
> 1. Reset all the timestamps in the source tree at the start of
>   all builds.  This unacceptable because it breaks make.  I mention it
>   for completeness.
>
> 2. Reset all the timestamps in the source tree at the start of a
>   supposely-reproducible build.  I think this is undesirable because
>   we want normal builds to be (in-principle) reproducible.
>
> 3. Have install(8) no longer copy the source file timestamp.  Instead,
>   it would use the current time.  (Which would be smashed to the build
>   epoch later.)
>
> 4. Change binary package generation to always smash all timestamps,
>   not just "new" ones.

FWIW Guix and Nix reset timestamps on all the installed files.

Ludo’.