martin rudalics wrote:
> The messages printed
> by your patch are:
>
> emacs-repository--version-git-1 /home/martin/emacs-git/release/.git/HEAD
> /home/martin/emacs-git/release/.git
> emacs-repository--version-git-1
> /home/martin/emacs-git/release/.git/refs/heads/master
> /home/martin/emacs-git/release/.git

What is the contents of /home/martin/emacs-git/release/.git/refs/heads/master? 
What happens if you try the attached patch instead? On my system, it outputs this:

...
Loading leim/leim-list.el (source)...
emacs-repository--version-git-1 
/home/eggert/src/gnu/emacs/static-checking/.git/HEAD 
/home/eggert/src/gnu/emacs/static-checking/.git
emacs-repository--version-git-1 
/home/eggert/src/gnu/emacs/static-checking/.git/refs/heads/master 
/home/eggert/src/gnu/emacs/static-checking/.git
emacs-repository--version-git-1 returns 062757dca01cff127583438ae16237af55b6253c
emacs-repository--version-git-1 returns 062757dca01cff127583438ae16237af55b6253c
Finding pointers to doc strings...
Finding pointers to doc strings...done
...