# Episode 196: FOSSY 2023 with Vagrant Cascadian  ## Episode metadata - Episode title: Episode 196: FOSSY 2023 with Vagrant Cascadian - Show: Sustain - Owner / Host: SustainOSS - Guests: [Vagrant Cascadian](https://share.snipd.com/person/7a09e2f6-05df-4875-8d11-a06dbb316b59) - Episode publish date: 2023-08-25 - Episode AI description: Guest Vagrant Cascadian discusses reproducible builds, ensuring identical results in software builds across machines, enhancing security. They explore challenges of managing random elements in software and making reproducible builds a best practice. Vagrant shares their progress and commitment to the 'last mile problem'. - Duration: 14:30 - Episode URL: [Open in Snipd](https://share.snipd.com/episode/014f1313-de5d-45cb-b413-dcaacd495a07) - Show URL: [Open in Snipd](https://share.snipd.com/show/0692a062-4bc7-4dce-9318-0f57031ff1d4) - Export date: 2026-02-17T23:20:52 ## Snips ### [Corporate Benefits of Reproducible Builds](https://share.snipd.com/snip/bd23be12-11c0-4942-9a67-052e777ad92f) 🎧 10:40 - 11:19 (00:38) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/996a8e1e-dcde-460d-8e2f-9aa14ac0a8de" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Companies like Google value reproducible builds to avoid unnecessary recompilation, saving time, energy, and money. - This can be an effective argument for funding reproducibility work within organizations. #### 💬 Quote > With reproducible builds, they can avoid rebuilding things when they know they don't have to... That saves them a lot of time and energy, like literally energy because they're building stuff. And money. > — Vagrant Cascadian Vagrant Cascadian on why companies care about reproducible builds #### 📚 Transcript they're really interested in it because with reproducible builds, they can avoid rebuilding things when they know they don't have to. They know nothing changed in the code. We've got reproducible builds. We don't have to redo this build. And that saves them a lot of time and energy, like literally energy because they're building stuff. And money. Yeah. And money definitely for so in that sense, there are some other side benefits you might get if you need to as a manager to pitch it to your higher ups or whatever. Yeah. So there can be some performance improvements with more reliable caching of your build results. --- ### [Nearing Completion but Last Mile Tough](https://share.snipd.com/snip/fcf60a3a-fbaf-4db9-bbfc-6489cd8a617b) 🎧 11:56 - 12:36 (00:39) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/41dd0ba6-9e64-4aa2-8fc5-6091e5db5c84" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Debian is about 96% reproducible after addressing easy issues; the remaining last 20% is the hardest. - The project faces a "last mile problem" to fully achieve reproducibility. #### 💬 Quote > Basically know how to make devian 96% reproducible... The hard part is we're 96% there, but the first 80% was fairly easy. So it's kind of a last mile problem to some degree. > — Vagrant Cascadian Vagrant Cascadian on progress and challenges in reproducible builds #### 📚 Transcript happen. And right now we're really in the proof of concept phase. Like cool. Basically know how to make devian 96% reproducible. Cool. That's over 30,000 source packages, over 50,000 binary packages, something like that. That's incredible. So yeah, we can really close. It's painfully close honestly. Do you have like a horizon line that you're looking at like by 2075 will be done? So the hard part is we're 96% there, but the first 80% was fairly easy. Cool. So that's some time stamps and a bunch of things and the numbers went from 10% reproducible to like 70 or 80. So it's kind of a last mile problem to some degree. --- Created with [Snipd](https://www.snipd.com) | Highlight & Take Notes from Podcasts