On Sun, 11 Sep 2005, Linus Torvalds wrote:

The _git_ network transport is. rsync and http aren't.

Btw, there's no reason why a client-side thing couldn't just parse the 
"alternates" thing, and if it doesn't find the objects in the main object 
directory, go and fetch them from the alternates itself.

IOW, this is not a fundamental problem with alternates, it's just that
since there is no server-side smarts to handle it (ie just raw file access
with rsync/http), it needs to be handled at the client side instead.

		Linus