Problem with large files on different OSes

[Christopher Jefferson <caj@cs.st-andrews.ac.uk>]

I recently came across a very annoying problem, characterised by the  
following example:

On a recent ubuntu install:

dd if=/dev/zero of=file bs=1300k count=1k
git commit file -m "Add huge file"


The repository can be pulled and pushed successfully to other ubuntu  
installs, but on Mac OS X, 10.5.7 machine with 4GB ram git pull  
produces:

remote: Counting objects: 6, done.
remote: git(1533,0xb0081000) malloc: *** mmap(size=1363152896) failed  
(error code=12)
remote: *** error: can't allocate region
remote: *** set a breakpoint in malloc_error_break to debug
remote: git(1533,0xb0081000) malloc: *** mmap(size=1363152896) failed  
(error code=12)
remote: *** error: can't allocate region
remote: *** set a breakpoint in malloc_error_break to debug
remote: fatal: Out of memory, malloc failed
error: git upload-pack: git-pack-objects died with error.
fatal: git upload-pack: aborting due to possible repository corruption  
on the remote side.
remote: aborting due to possible repository corruption on the remote  
side.
fatal: protocol error: bad pack header


The problem appears to be the different maximum mmap sizes available  
on different OSes. Whic I don't really mind the maximum file size  
restriction git imposes, this restriction varying from OS to OS is  
very annoying, fixing this required rewriting history to remove the  
commit, which caused problems as the commit had already been pulled,  
and built on, by a number of developers.

If the requirement that all files can be mmapped cannot be easily  
removed, would be it perhaps be acceptable to impose a (soft?)  
1GB(ish) file size limit? I suggest 1GB as all the OSes I can get hold  
of easily (freeBSD, windows, Mac OS X, linux) support a mmap of size >  
1GB.