Hi List,
TL;DR: We are doing a focus group study on people's expectations and
requirements regarding terminology in the reproducible builds space, and
are looking for participants who are interested in the topic to share
their opinions.
For more info, see the full text below.
My name is Timo Pohl, and together with my colleagues, I'm currently
researching reproducible builds in the IT security working group of
Prof. Michael Meier at the University of Bonn [1].
During our research of the existing literature, as well as my experience
at the Reproducible Builds Summit 2025 in Vienna, we noticed that some
of the terminology in the field is not used consistently across
different groups of people, and that the precise meaning of some core
terms like "reproducibility of an artifact" in itself is not uniform.
Writing yet another definition on our own would totally solve this
problem [2] (/s), but we are confident that, to reach a broader
consensus on the meaning of these terms, we need to involve the
community and its current use of them.
Thus, our goal is to collect existing ideas, requirements and
expectations regarding reproducible build terminology from stakeholders
already involved in the topic.
We want to synthesize the different needs into a set of terms that
capture everyone's expectations, aiming to perhaps aid in publishing a
reproducible-builds spec [3] with our results.
This would help with consistent communication about reproducible builds,
and with precisely knowing what it means if, for example, someone claims
that the Debian ISO is fully reproducible.
To do so, we invite you to online group discussions with 4-6
participants each to talk about your perception of terms and
requirements for reproducibility.
The sessions will last roughly 90 minutes and will be rewarded with 50€
per participant.
If you want to participate, please fill out the form here, which should
take only about three minutes:
https://usecap.fra1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eDlT7tnu1Oi1kpw
We will send e-mails to potential participants until April 29th to let
you know whether you were selected to participate in the group
discussions, including further instructions.
Should you have any questions, please reach out to me at
[email protected].
Thank you!
Best
Timo Pohl
[1] https://net.cs.uni-bonn.de/wg/itsec/staff/timo-pohl/
[2] https://xkcd.com/927/
[3] https://salsa.debian.org/reproducible-builds/specs
(Sorry if you got this invitation via multiple channels.)
--
Timo Pohl
Institut für Informatik IV Raum: 1.018
Universität Bonn Tel.: +49 228 73-54246
Friedrich-Hirzebruch-Allee 8 E-Mail: [email protected]
53115 Bonn PGP key id: 0x4872A6DD1019A4D8
Department of Computer Science IV Room: 1.018
University of Bonn Phone: +49 228 73-54246
Friedrich-Hirzebruch-Allee 8 E-Mail: [email protected]
53115 Bonn PGP key id: 0x4872A6DD1019A4D8
Germany
