[Pkg-gnupg-maint] Bug#762397: [Reproducible-builds] Bug#762397: libgpg-error: please do not capture the current time during the build process

[Dominic Hargreaves]

On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 10:45:14PM +0200, Jérémy Bobbio wrote:
> As part of the “reproducible builds” effort [1], it was detected that
> libgpg-error could not be built reproducibly.
> 
> The build process capture the time of the build. This piece of
> information is not really helpful to anyone and prevents the build
> process from being deterministic.
> 
> The attached patch will instead use the time of the latest
> debian/changelog entry. Once applied, libgpg-error can be built
> reproducibly! :)

Wouldn't it be better to patch configure.ac in a way useful to upstream;
for example by having it use the time from an exported environment
variable? Otherwise the package is going to have to carry around a
Debian-specific patch forever.

Cheers,
Dominic.