Large git repositories

[Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr>]

Hello,

I am trying to package the droid font family. It appears to be available
only via the android git at:
   https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/android-4.4.4_r2.0.1/data/fonts/
where
   https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base.git
defines the git repository.

This page contains a tgz download link:
   https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+archive/android-4.4.4_r2.0.1/data/fonts.tar.gz
Unfortunately, the file seems to be generated on the fly and have a
different hash value each time.

The git-reference method seems to clone all of the repository, which has
about 1.5 GB. I tried several methods by hand, such as
   git clone -b android-4.4.4_r2.0.1 https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base.git data/fonts
or
   git init; git fetch https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base.git android-4.4.4_r2.0.1
but all of them apparently download the full repository.

I also tried
   git archive --remote=https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base.git android-4.4.4_r2.0.1 data/fonts
but the git server apparently does not support this:
fatal: Operation not supported by protocol.
(and I am also not sure that the output would have a fixed hash).

Do you see any solution to this problem?

Andreas