[rb-general] Change front page definition

David A. Wheeler dwheeler at dwheeler.com
Thu Apr 4 17:25:25 CEST 2019


The front page has this definition:

> Reproducible builds are a set of software development practices that create an independently-verifiable path from source to binary code.

The word "path" here is confusing.  A "path" can be interpreted as being a "process", so it sounds like the only requirement is that you can rerun the *process*.  But that's not enough to be reproducible - you have to have identical *results*!  That is not at all clear from this definition.

That front page links to a different definition:

> A build is reproducible if given the same source code, build environment and build instructions, any party can recreate bit-by-bit identical copies of all specified artifacts.

I like this definition much more; it is much less ambiguous.  You could add "(e.g., executables)." after "artifacts" if you think that artifacts is too abstract.

Can we simply copy this definition to the front page & use this definition instead on https://reproducible-builds.org/ ?

Sorry to (re)start a definition war, but when I came back to look at the definition (while trying to explain it to someone else) I found it led to more questions than answers.

Thanks!

--- David A. Wheeler


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