"git archive" seems to be broken wrt zip files

So I wouldn't ever have noticed on my own, but now that I've tried
github for the kernel, somebody else reported that the downloaded zip
file (seriously? the kernel as a zip file?) is corrupt.

And it doesn't really seem to be a github issue. I can re-create it
with a simple

   git archive --format=zip HEAD -o ../kernel.zip

on my kernel repository: the end result does not unzip correctly:

   mkdir temp-directory
   cd temp-directory
   unzip kernel.zip
   ...
     inflating: virt/kvm/iommu.c
     inflating: virt/kvm/irq_comm.c
     inflating: virt/kvm/kvm_main.c
   finishing deferred symbolic links:
     arch/microblaze/boot/dts/system.dts -> ../../platform/generic/system.dts
     drivers/scsi/aic94xx/aic94xx_reg.h -> /*^J * Aic94xx SAS/SATA
driver hardware registers definitions.[ rest of the file ]
   symlink error: File name too long

iow, for some reason that "drivers/scsi/aic94xx/aic94xx_reg.h" file
seems to have been encoded as a symlink.

Anybody seen this?

                          Linus