Invitation to focus groups regarding reproducible builds terminology

[Timo Pohl]

Hi List,

TL;DR: We are doing a focus group study on people's expectations and 
requirements regarding terminology in the reproducible builds space, and 
are looking for participants who are interested in the topic to share 
their opinions.
For more info, see the full text below.

My name is Timo Pohl, and together with my colleagues, I'm currently 
researching reproducible builds in the IT security working group of 
Prof. Michael Meier at the University of Bonn [1].

During our research of the existing literature, as well as my experience 
at the Reproducible Builds Summit 2025 in Vienna, we noticed that some 
of the terminology in the field is not used consistently across 
different groups of people, and that the precise meaning of some core 
terms like "reproducibility of an artifact" in itself is not uniform.

Writing yet another definition on our own would totally solve this 
problem [2] (/s), but we are confident that, to reach a broader 
consensus on the meaning of these terms, we need to involve the 
community and its current use of them.
Thus, our goal is to collect existing ideas, requirements and 
expectations regarding reproducible build terminology from stakeholders 
already involved in the topic.

We want to synthesize the different needs into a set of terms that 
capture everyone's expectations, aiming to perhaps aid in publishing a 
reproducible-builds spec [3] with our results.
This would help with consistent communication about reproducible builds, 
and with precisely knowing what it means if, for example, someone claims 
that the Debian ISO is fully reproducible.

To do so, we invite you to online group discussions with 4-6 
participants each to talk about your perception of terms and 
requirements for reproducibility.
The sessions will last roughly 90 minutes and will be rewarded with 50€ 
per participant.

If you want to participate, please fill out the form here, which should 
take only about three minutes:

https://usecap.fra1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eDlT7tnu1Oi1kpw

We will send e-mails to potential participants until April 29th to let 
you know whether you were selected to participate in the group 
discussions, including further instructions.

Should you have any questions, please reach out to me at 
pohl at cs.uni-bonn.de.
Thank you!

Best
Timo Pohl

[1] https://net.cs.uni-bonn.de/wg/itsec/staff/timo-pohl/
[2] https://xkcd.com/927/
[3] https://salsa.debian.org/reproducible-builds/specs

(Sorry if you got this invitation via multiple channels.)

-- 
Timo Pohl

Institut für Informatik IV             Raum:   1.018
Universität Bonn                       Tel.:   +49 228 73-54246
Friedrich-Hirzebruch-Allee 8           E-Mail: pohl at cs.uni-bonn.de
53115 Bonn                             PGP key id: 0x4872A6DD1019A4D8


Department of Computer Science IV      Room:   1.018
University of Bonn                     Phone:  +49 228 73-54246
Friedrich-Hirzebruch-Allee 8           E-Mail: pohl at cs.uni-bonn.de
53115 Bonn                             PGP key id: 0x4872A6DD1019A4D8
Germany