Deleting hack.c cause the kernel to always be out of date:
$ make kernel make: /usr/src/sys/amd64/compile/GENERIC/.depend.hack.pico, 1: ignoring stale .depend for hack.c :> hack.c cc -shared -O2 -pipe ... -nostdlib hack.c -o hack.pico rm -f hack.c MAKE="make" sh ../../../conf/newvers.sh "-R" GENERIC cc -c -O2 -pipe ... -std=iso9899:1999 -Werror vers.c ctfconvert -L VERSION -g vers.o linking kernel.full
Keeping hack.c in the compile directory causes no harm,
so there's no reason to delete it.