On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 9:16 AM, Michael Catanzaro <mcatanzaro@gnome.org> wrote:
Maybe this is a GitHub-specific problem. If the submodule files are not
present in the archive, then archive cannot be intended to be used

I searched and found many people were complaining about it a few years ago... and
I read a few references about Github considering to fix it, but AFAIK no real action 
has been taken.  I believe probably because it isn't a very popular feature; they just don't
care to deal with it.

I haven't seen any posts that really sing it's praises; and more than a few that detest it. 

Personally, I think it's more trouble than it's worth, but if upstream decides to use it
for what ever the reason, it's their project and I'll deal with it.