[tex-k] Reproducible builds using pdftex

[Norbert Preining]

Hi Jonathan,

>   \day = 1
>   \month = 4
>   \year = 2016

While this is a possible idea, it still needs either fixing every document or makefile to use a different format, or requires that the build environment has different formats then the normal installed systems.

Both are not very convenient to day there least.

The idea is that a normal binary rebuild would give identical documents on a normal system.

(Putting Debian hat on) I guess even if these changes don't make it into TeX Live proper, I will patch the Debian sources to support these features.

(Putting TeX Live hat on) I do see actual use for us on TeX Live, too, as I am working to extend l3build to support checking not only log files, but also actual PDFs. This could be integrated (and I hope to do that) into package checks when they are updated in TeX Live.

So from my side in welcoming these patches.

Norbert

-- 
Sent from my mobile device. Please excuse my brevity.