Man, if people just took the time to read the link and not the comment :)

I actually did and the link just references a specification, not a standard.

Something being “standardised” requires more than just a specification and just because the specification throws the term “standard” around it doesn’t mean it has been formally standardised.

This doesn’t mean people shouldn’t still follow the specification. Plenty of specifications exist that have not been standardised. For example, there is an RFC specification for CSVs but not formal standard.

So by all means push this specification as a de facto standard but please don’t mislead people saying it has been standardised when it has not.

It usually takes less than 30 seconds to copy+paste quote the portion of the linked content that's actually relevant. Doing so greatly improves the effectiveness of communication.

That’s a specification. Just because the specification says it’s standardised it doesn’t mean it is. Where’s the corresponding approval from ISO, ANSI or other standards authority?

There’s nothing wrong with a specification or even a reference implementation but they are not themselves standards. And that’s exactly what this is: a widely respected specification.

You shouldn’t have to lie about this being standardised for it still to be relevant.

You don't need to get approval from ISO, ANSI or any other entity in order to standarize something _within your own organization_. Again, the SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH variable has been standarized within the Reproducible Builds organization, and no one can say otherwise.

But that doesn’t still make the specification “standardised” for anyone else.

I hate arguing semantics because it’s usually a worthless argument. But the problem here is people are specifically arguing that Reproducible Builds have standardised something when they have not. If you still want to use their specification then that’s grand. You don’t need a specification standardised for it to be relevant.

However on the very specific point of whether this is a standard, I’m yet to see any proof that anyone has actually standardised the specification. All I’m reading is “but they say it is” and frankly that’s not enough to make a standard.

> But that doesn’t still make the specification “standardised” for anyone else.

Of course not, and no one has claimed that this is a globally recognized standard. The only thing that has been claimed is that they have standarized it for _themselves_.

It's important to get semantics right, and it's equally important to really read and understand what's being said, and not assume something "more" is being said than what is really said.

> Of course not, and no one has claimed that this is a globally recognized standard.

> > Reproducible Builds has standardized "SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH" for exactly this usecase.

> It's important to get semantics right, and it's equally important to really read and understand what's being said

I’d say either you’re wrong or the GP was unclear in his statement. Either way I don’t buy your attempt to shift the responsibility of error into me.

I wrote "Reproducible Builds has standardized". I made no assertions how this is recognized in the wider ecosystem.

However, a couple hundred projects heed this standard along with most distributions. Does your nitpicking really matter?

It does when you tersely react to other people’s comments stating they should follow “standards” (which you now finally agree are not a standard).

If your comment wasn’t so rude from the outset then I wouldn’t have nitpicked your statement. I think there’s some “law” people often quite about people who correct other people that applies to your post.