diff --git a/buildenv b/buildenv
index b55e99c..17fa8e7 100644
--- a/buildenv
+++ b/buildenv
@@ -118,6 +118,7 @@ zopen_post_install()
 
   mkdir -p "$1/etc"
   touch "$1/etc/gitconfig" # empty it out to avoid error with --system option
+  touch "$1/etc/gitattributes" # empty it out to avoid error with --system option
 
   # Install a cacert.pem to be used (optionally) by the customer
   if ! $MYDIR/zopen update-cacert -f $1 ; then
@@ -171,6 +172,7 @@ GIT_EXEC_PATH|set|PROJECT_ROOT/libexec/git-core
 ZOPEN_GIT_SSL_CAINFO|set|PROJECT_ROOT/cacert.pem
 ASCII_TERMINFO|set|PROJECT_ROOT/../../ncurses/ncurses/share/terminfo/
 GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM|set|PROJECT_ROOT/etc/gitconfig
+GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM|set|PROJECT_ROOT/etc/gitattributes
 _ENCODE_FILE_NEW|unset|
 EOF
 }
diff --git a/stable-patches/attr.c.patch b/stable-patches/attr.c.patch
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3166bbb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/stable-patches/attr.c.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+diff --git i/attr.c w/attr.c
+index 0bd2750..9e17884 100644
+--- i/attr.c
++++ w/attr.c
+@@ -873,9 +873,10 @@ static struct attr_stack *read_attr(struct index_state *istate,
+ 
+ const char *git_attr_system_file(void)
+ {
+-	static const char *system_wide;
++	char *system_wide = xstrdup_or_null(getenv("GIT_ATTR_SYSTEM"));
+ 	if (!system_wide)
+ 		system_wide = system_path(ETC_GITATTRIBUTES);
++	normalize_path_copy(system_wide, system_wide);
+ 	return system_wide;
+ }
+