Jonathan Nieder [off-list ref] writes:
quoted
touch -d @SECONDS isn't POSIX compliant, and non-Linux systems don't
provide it. POSIX only allows certain fixed format, and I assume that
non-Linux parties (maybe OpenBSD) will want to have reproducible builds
as well.
Interesting. My knee-jerk preference is still to go with this patch
as-is for now, since the non-portability only triggers when
SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH is set.
As long as this patch is kept Debian-only, that is a sensible stance
to take. I am not sure (note: this is different from "I do not think")
if it is also OK for the wider public, though.
I wondered if this affects the dirtyness of the build, regardless of
how file timestamps are mucked with. It turns out that we do not
use "describe --dirty" in the GIT-VERSION-GEN script, so perhaps
it would be OK.