Problem with large files on different OSes

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.