The benefit of having a signature over a simple hash is that even if the code was tampered with, you would know it is not the same as what the author used. On t

The benefit of having a signature over a simple hash is that even if the code was tampered with, you would know it is not the same as what the author used. On the other hand, if it was a reproducible build, it could have still been tampered with somewhere and only the original developer could verify that you got the right code to start with. Also, not everyone is equipped to build software. Signatures enable you to easily know that there was no MITM tampering (or at least, to assume much lower chances of it), with less overall trust required.