Re: Set FORCE_SOURCE_DATE=1 by default

[Maxim Cournoyer]

Hi Vagrant,

Vagrant Cascadian <vagrant@reproducible-builds.org> writes:

> On 2022-06-22, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> Vagrant Cascadian <vagrant@reproducible-builds.org> skribis:
>>
>>> On 2022-06-21, Maxim Cournoyer wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>>> I'd much prefer challenging that stance than "endorsing" it in Guix :-).
>>>> I think it'd be OK to reluctantly add it in as a stop-gap fix in Guix,
>>>> but *only* after opening an issue to discuss it upstream and linking to
>>>> that issue in Guix.
>>>
>>> I get it. I really do. It kind of grates at me every time I think about
>>> this.
>>
>> :-)
>>
>> Another option would be to patch TeX Live, assuming the
>> FORCE_SOURCE_DATE bit is well isolated in a single file.  Would that
>> seem reasonable/feasible/desirable to you, Vagrant?
>
> Only problem I see is indefinitely maintaining a patch to TeX Live that
> upstream is unlikely to take ... but other than that, this sounds great!

I wouldn't expect this simple substitution should be too difficult to
maintain :-).

> We'd also get a clearer idea of which packages are affected, rather than
> setting it globally and rebuilding everything...

I don't think it's of critical importance; what we care about here is
having the software reproducible, not knowing exactly which esoteric
environment variable enabled it.

> I'll also try to dig up at least one of the threads where there was some
> discussion with upstream... hopefully without getting too caught up in
> that old rabbit hole.

That'd be nice.

Thanks!

Maxim