diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..d4eba3a9cd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+/* export-ignore
+/README-github_gitlab-autogenerated-archives.txt -export-ignore
diff --git a/README-github_gitlab-autogenerated-archives.txt b/README-github_gitlab-autogenerated-archives.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..9caa33b51d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README-github_gitlab-autogenerated-archives.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+github/gitlab autogenerated archives are not supported
+======================================================
+
+This information applies to bundles automatically generated
+by github and gitlab.
+
+strace's program version is maintained using git-version-gen script, therefore,
+building strace depends on "git describe" (a full git clone is needed for this)
+or, alternatively, a .tarball-version file.  Neither github nor gitlab can
+provide the latter, they also do not allow to inject a .tarball-version file
+during export archiving.