[Reproducible-builds] Bug#806945: bash: Please make bash build reproducibly

[Maria Valentina Marin]

Source: bash
Version: 4.3-14
Severity: wishlist
User: reproducible-builds at lists.alioth.debian.org
Usertags: timestamps

Hi,

While working on the “reproducible builds” effort [1], we have noticed
that bash could not be built reproducibly.

There are two problems:
1. Bash uses an embedded copy of man2html which produces html that
   contains timestamps, it is recommended to drop this internal copy and
   instead depend on the Debian man2html which contains a patch [4].

2. The pdf files created by dvipdfmx contain fonts with indeterministic
   order and naming [2]. This can be fixed by not generating the pdf in
   the first place as gnu codding standards makes pdf generation
   optional [3]. This has to be solved upstream.

Regards,
akira

 [1]: https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds
 [2]: https://reproducible.debian.net/issues/unstable/fonts_in_pdf_files_issue.html
 [3]: https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html#Standard-Targets
 [4]: http://sources.debian.net/src/man2html/1.6g-8/debian/patches/035-source-date-epoch.patch/