https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=954074
--- Comment #13 from Michael Schwendt <bugs.michael(a)gmx.net> ---
Preserving timestamps is somewhat controversial, and it is something where a
packager ought not to exxaggerate. It is not a MUST, but a SHOULD in some cases
only. Mostly: prebuilt files that are installed manually during %install. If
you need to modify a prebuilt file (even when using sed), don't try to too hard
to restore its original timestamp. Some packagers do that (e.g. because all
they do is to replace line delimiters), but the guidelines don't mandate it.
Preserving timestamps dates back to fedora.us, where we have found it to be a
nice idea with %doc files, so the user may recognise the age of old
software/documentation when visiting them in %_docdir. That has been considered
helpful also in other cases, such as default configuration files. After
installing a regularly updated package in 2013, you may notice that the
included documentation and config files are from 2001, and that may be a
helpful hint in various ways. As a plus: when running intrusion detection
software such as AIDE or Tripwire, you don't need to disable timestamp change
logging for such files in packages, which are updated often without changing
the file contents actually.
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