[MARTIFACT-20] create artifact:compare goal (extracted from artifact:buildinfo)

• Type: New Feature
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 3.1.0
• Fix Version/s: 3.2.0
• Component/s: artifact:buildinfo, artifact:compare
• Assignee: Herve Boutemy
• Reporter: Herve Boutemy
• Created: 19/Jun/21 19:35
• Updated: 09/Oct/21 16:21
• Resolved: 20/Jun/21 08:12

Description

comparing current build output to reference is finally the only goal useful to check if a build is reproducible, completely independent of creating a buildinfo or not

talking much about buildinfo is misleading: it makes feel that buildinfo is
1. necessary
2. sufficient
to get a reproducible build.
Buildinfo is netiher necessary nor sufficient to get a reproducible build: it just records current effective build output, without any hint if the build will be reproducible or not.

The only way to check that a build is reproducible is to rebuild and compare build output with previous build output: this is usually done without buildinfo.

Creating an artifact:compare goal that will produce a .compare file will make the reproducible build check easier and more clear than previous artifact:buildinfo with additional arguments that produced a .buildinfo.compare