[zaroth]

Deterministic builds are pretty neat. I think the second equally important piece is a a Web of Trust full of people willing to reproduce the build and sign off on the hashes.

I was able to reproduce the sha512sum of the Bitcoin back when 0.9.0 came out without too much trouble, but it definitely took a couple hours to get it all working.

I feel a bit bad I didn't take the next step and attach my digital signature signifying that I could reproduce it. There are only a few people other than Gavin who go to the trouble of signing off on the hashes.

I wonder if Docker could be used to speed up the overall process and make builds more accessible. As I recall, the current scripts setup a single-core KVM which definitely slowed things down.

[taeric]

Docker could speed up parts. But, unless I misunderstand what you mean it wouldn't really help the trust aspect. You'd just be shifting your trust to the docker pieces. (That is, then the goal shifts to "can anyone reproduce the docker container?") Right?

[fanquake]

Work has already started on supporting Docker images in Gitian Builder. https://github.com/devrandom/gitian-builder/issues/53