The umask of the build user affects the generated default.vlt, setting permissions on various files differently: https://tests.reproducible-builds.org/debian/rb-pkg/bullseye/amd64/diffoscope-results/vlc.html ./usr/share/vlc/skins2/default.vlt drwxr-xr-x···0·root·········(0)·root·········(0)········0·2021-01-17·22:11:09.000000·default/ vs. drwxrwxr-x···0·root·········(0)·root·········(0)········0·2021-01-17·22:11:09.000000·default/ The attached patch fixes this by passing a mode argument to tar. This patch does not address all reproducibility issues in vlc (e.g. build paths), though applying it reduces the diff for the remaining issues. Thanks for maintaining vlc! live well, vagrant