Re: [PATCH] gnu: fontforge: Build fonts bit-reproducibly.

[Ludovic Courtès]

alírio eyng <address@hidden> skribis:

> +               (substitute* "fontforge/tottf.c"
> +                 (("at.>head\\.createtime\\[0\\]") "0")
> +                 (("at.>head\\.modtime\\[0\\]") "0"))))))

Interesting, great that you found it!

This is for timestamps recorded in TTF files, right?

Perhaps it would be best to honor the ‘SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH’ environment
variable¹ instead of always using zero?

Our build environment systematically sets ‘SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH’ so we’d be
fine, but Fontforge users who expect a meaningful timestamp in there
would still have it.  And the patch could even be submitted upstream
eventually.

WDYT?

See also
<https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds/TimestampsInFontsGeneratedWithFontForge>,
which mentions other font formats.

Thanks,
Ludo’.

¹ https://reproducible-builds.org/specs/source-date-epoch/