[rb-general] Change front page definition

Holger Levsen holger at layer-acht.org
Thu Apr 18 21:44:04 CEST 2019


Hi David,

sorry for the delay in replying.

On Thu, Apr 04, 2019 at 11:25:25AM -0400, David A. Wheeler wrote:
> 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.

it's a front page, the details are somewhere else. As you are well
aware, reproducible-builds are full of details. 

> 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/ ?

maybe. though I do like 'a set of software development practices' on the
frontpage, as it implies that there are (or can be) several practices
which lead to r-b results.
 
> 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.

it's totally ok, just maybe a MR would have been easier ;)

I'll give it another thought...


-- 
tschau,
	Holger

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