Happy new year from the Reproducible Builds project! Here's what happened in the [Reproducible Builds](https://reproducible-builds.org) effort between Sunday December 30 and Saturday January 5 2019:
Happy new year from the Reproducible Builds project! Here's what happened in the [Reproducible Builds](https://reproducible-builds.org) effort between Sunday December 30th and Saturday January 5th:
*[Chris Lamb](https://chris-lamb.co.uk/)[created a pull request](https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow/pull/146) against the [shadow](https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow) tool that manages *inter alia* the `/etc/passwd` and `/etc/shadow` file after Johannes Schauer noticed that the `sp_lastchg` field in the latter was no longer reproducible in Debian bug [#917773](https://bugs.debian.org/917773).
*[Chris Lamb](https://chris-lamb.co.uk/)[created a pull request](https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow/pull/146) against the [shadow](https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow) tool that manages,*inter alia*, the `/etc/passwd` and `/etc/shadow` file. This is was after Johannes Schauer noticed that the `sp_lastchg` field in the latter was no longer reproducible in Debian bug [#917773](https://bugs.debian.org/917773).
* Arnout Engelen started an interesting thread [on our mailing list](https://lists.reproducible-builds.org/pipermail/rb-general/) regarding [how to share rebuilder "attestations"](https://lists.reproducible-builds.org/pipermail/rb-general/2019-January/001378.html) in the Java ecosystem.
* Chris Lamb [posted a historical summary and a request for action](https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/fontconfig/2019-January/006420.html) to [Fontconfig](https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/fontconfig/)'s [mailing list](https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/fontconfig/) in order that a solution may be found and included in Debian *buster*.
* Chris Lamb posted a historical summary and [a request for action](https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/fontconfig/2019-January/006420.html) to [Fontconfig](https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/fontconfig/)'s [mailing list](https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/fontconfig/) in order that a solution may be found and included in Debian *buster*.
* Igor Dvorzhak [submitted an interesting merge request](https://salsa.debian.org/reproducible-builds/strip-nondeterminism/merge_requests/3) against our `strip-nondeterminism` tool that post-processes files to remove known non-deterministic output in order to parallelise the execution of `dh_strip_nondeterminism(1)` utility and `.zip` handler. Thanks to Niels Thykier for his review so far.
* Igor Dvorzhak [submitted an interesting merge request](https://salsa.debian.org/reproducible-builds/strip-nondeterminism/merge_requests/3) against `strip-nondeterminism`(our tool that post-processes files to remove known non-deterministic output) in order to parallelise the execution of `dh_strip_nondeterminism(1)` utility and `.zip` handler. Thanks to Niels Thykier for his review so far.
* Chris Lamb updated [diffoscope](https://diffoscope.org/), our in-depth "diff-on-steroids" utility which helps us diagnose reproducibility issues in packages, expanding the padding/spacing for "N calls" in the profiling output as having 99,999+ calls to (for example) `cmp(1)` is not uncommon for [Tails](https://tails.boum.org) ISOs. [[...](https://salsa.debian.org/reproducible-builds/diffoscope/commit/21e4c1d)]
* Rebecca N. Palmer filed Debian bug [#918361](https://bugs.debian.org/918361) to fix a reproducibility issue in [node-browserify-lite](https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/node-browserify-lite).
* On [January 9th 2019, Chris Lamb will speak](http://actux.eu.org/2019/01/conference-sur-les-builds-reproductibles-mercredi-9-janvier-2019/) at [Université de Rennes](https://www.univ-rennes1.fr/), France on reproducible builds.
* Patches for [GNU mtools](https://www.gnu.org/software/mtools/) to ensure the [Tails](https://tails.boum.org/) USB and [Debian Installer](https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/) images can be reproducible were uploaded (via the [`DELAYED`](https://ftp-master.debian.org/deferred.html) queue) to Debian unstable by Chris Lamb after following the [new packaging salvaging process](https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/developers-reference/ch05.en.html#package-salvaging) via Debian bug [#916127](https://bugs.debian.org/916127). This additionally generated two upstream patches ([1](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-mtools/2019-01/msg00003.html), [2](http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-mtools/2019-01/msg00000.html)).
*On [January 9th 2019, Chris Lamb will speak](http://actux.eu.org/2019/01/conference-sur-les-builds-reproductibles-mercredi-9-janvier-2019/) at [Université de Rennes](https://www.univ-rennes1.fr/), France on reproduciblebuilds.
*Chris Lamb updated [diffoscope](https://diffoscope.org/), our in-depth "diff-on-steroids" utility which helps us diagnose reproducibility issues in packages, expanding the padding/spacing for "N calls" in the profiling output as having 99,999+ calls to (for example) `cmp(1)` is not uncommon for [Tails](https://tails.boum.org) ISOs. [[...](https://salsa.debian.org/reproducible-builds/diffoscope/commit/21e4c1d)]
* There were a number of updates to our [reproducible-builds.org](https://reproducible-builds.org) project website this week, including:
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@@ -31,18 +30,6 @@ Happy new year from the Reproducible Builds project! Here's what happened in the
* Chris Lamb reviewed 4 packages, but 14 were automatically updated & removed this week, adding to [our knowledge about identified issues](https://tests.reproducible-builds.org/debian/index_issues.html).
## Test framework development
There were a number of updates to our [Jenkins](https://jenkins.io/)-based testing framework that powers [tests.reproducible-builds.org](https://tests.reproducible-builds.org) this week, including:
* Holger Levsen:
* Update links to the [Tango Icon Theme](http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Icon_Library) guidelines and copyright years. [[...](https://salsa.debian.org/qa/jenkins.debian.net/commit/bed9679b)]
There were a number of updates to our [Jenkins](https://jenkins.io/)-based testing framework that powers [tests.reproducible-builds.org](https://tests.reproducible-builds.org) this week, including:
* Holger Levsen:
* Update links to the [Tango Icon Theme](http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Icon_Library) guidelines and copyright years. [[...](https://salsa.debian.org/qa/jenkins.debian.net/commit/bed9679b)]
This week's edition was written by Bernhard M. Wiedemann, Chris Lamb and Eli Schwartz & reviewed by a bunch of Reproducible Builds folks on IRC & the mailing lists.
Chris Lamb authored