[Reproducible-builds] Bug#824266: mkdocs: Please support SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH specification for build time stamps

[Axel Beckert]

Package: mkdocs
Version: 0.15.3-3
Severity: wishlist
User: reproducible-builds at lists.alioth.debian.org
Usertags: timestamps toolchain
Control: affects -1 unburden-home-dir djangorestframework

Hi,

mkdocs integrates build time stamps into the documentation it is
generating. This makes at least unburden-home-dir no more reproducibly
building because it now uses mkdocs to generate HTML documentation at
build time.

See https://tests.reproducible-builds.org/rb-pkg/unstable/amd64/unburden-home-dir.html and
https://tests.reproducible-builds.org/dbd/unstable/amd64/unburden-home-dir_0.4.diffoscope.html

Other cases of this issue are the source package djangorestframework (see
https://tests.reproducible-builds.org/rb-pkg/testing/i386/djangorestframework.html and
https://tests.reproducible-builds.org/dbd/testing/i386/djangorestframework_3.3.2-2.diffoscope.html)
and of course the source package python-mkdocs itself, see
https://tests.reproducible-builds.org/rb-pkg/unstable/amd64/python-mkdocs.html and
https://tests.reproducible-builds.org/dbd/unstable/amd64/python-mkdocs_0.15.3-3.diffoscope.html

At https://reproducible-builds.org/specs/source-date-epoch/ you can find
a bound to be widely adopted specification for how to solve such kind of
issues generally: If the environment variable SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH exists
use the Unix time stamp (seconds since 1st of January 1970, 00:00:00
UTC) it contains to preseed all build time stamps with that time stamp
instead of the current time.

See https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds/TimestampsProposal#Examples
for some examples on how to implement support for SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH,
including an example for Python.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: stretch/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (990, 'unstable'), (980, 'unstable-debug'), (600, 'testing'), (111, 'buildd-unstable'), (111, 'buildd-experimental'), (110, 'experimental'), (105, 'experimental-debug')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.5.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=C.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages mkdocs depends on:
ii  fonts-font-awesome     4.6.1~dfsg-1
ii  mkdocs-bootstrap       0.1.1-2
ii  mkdocs-bootswatch      0.4.0-2
ii  python3-click          6.6-1
ii  python3-jinja2         2.8-1
ii  python3-livereload     2.4.0-1
ii  python3-markdown       2.6.6-1
ii  python3-pkg-resources  20.10.1-1
ii  python3-tornado        4.2.1-2
ii  python3-yaml           3.11-3+b1
pn  python3:any            <none>

mkdocs recommends no packages.

Versions of packages mkdocs suggests:
ii  ghp-import  0.4.1-1
ii  mkdocs-doc  0.15.3-3

-- no debconf information