Issue with git clone via http/https and alternates

I'm hosting a number of largish repositories which being very similar
are using git's alternates feature to save disk and memory.  Cloning via
git:// or ssh for users with accounts on the server works as expected but
cloning via http or https results fails as follows:

$ git clone http://git.linux-mips.org/pub/scm/linux-mti.git
Cloning into 'linux-mti'...
warning: alternate disabled by http.followRedirects: http://git.linux-mips.org/pub/scm/ralf/linux.git/
error: Unable to find e4add961d4aaeb19f607f6d7bea8d59e1bd39ff0 under http://git.linux-mips.org/pub/scm/linux-mti.git
Fetching objects: 11, done.
Cannot obtain needed object e4add961d4aaeb19f607f6d7bea8d59e1bd39ff0
while processing commit 9e2bf7cf7d9003c0f06736be5218ed79234f254c.
error: fetch failed.

Adding -c http.followRedirects=true will make the clone succeed. Question,
shouldn't the default of http.followRedirects=initial already suffice?

Anyway, what I'm looking for is something I can do serverside so users
cloning the repository are not bothered with this http.followRedirects
business.  Is there anything I can do?

Thanks,

  Ralf