diff --git a/README-maintainer-mode b/README-maintainer-mode
index 6d65d289c8e..fdafa692c0c 100644
--- a/README-maintainer-mode
+++ b/README-maintainer-mode
@@ -5,10 +5,10 @@ Note that if you configure with --enable-maintainer-mode, you will need
 special versions of automake, autoconf, libtool and gettext. You will
 find the sources for these in the respective upstream directories:
 
-  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/autoconf
-  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/automake
-  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/libtool
-  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gettext
+  https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/autoconf
+  https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/automake
+  https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/libtool
+  https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gettext
 
 The required versions of the tools for this tree are:
 
@@ -24,3 +24,12 @@ Makefiles in the parent directories before running the Makefiles in
 the child directories.  There is no easy way around this (short of
 changing the automake macros) as these dependencies need to exist in
 order to correctly build the NLS files.
+
+When running the testsuites a minimum version of dejagnu is also needed.
+Dejagnu can be found here:
+
+  https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/dejagnu/
+
+The minimum version required is:
+
+  dejagnu 1.5.3
diff --git a/src-release.sh b/src-release.sh
index 079b545ae7c..de1f98a70bb 100755
--- a/src-release.sh
+++ b/src-release.sh
@@ -184,9 +184,15 @@ do_tar()
     ver=$2
     echo "==> Making $package-$ver.tar"
     rm -f $package-$ver.tar
+    # The sort command and --mtime, --group and --owner options are
+    # used in order to create consistent, reproducible tarballs.
+    # BUILD_DATE is set to SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH if defined, or the
+    # modification date of this file otherwise.  cf:
+    # https://reproducible-builds.org/docs/source-date-epoch/
+    BUILD_DATE="$(date --utc --date="@${SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH:-$(date -r src-release.sh +%s)}" +%Y-%m-%d)"
     find $package-$ver -follow \( $CVS_NAMES \) -prune \
-	-o -type f -print \
-	| tar cTfh - $package-$ver.tar
+	-o -type f -print | LC_ALL=C sort \
+	| tar cTfh - $package-$ver.tar --mtime=$BUILD_DATE --group=0 --owner=0
 }
 
 # Compress the output with bzip2