What .gitignore files do in the tarball?

Collegues,

I've noticed that source distribution archive of the postgresql contain
more than hundred of .gitignore files and one .gitattributes.

Is it just a bug nobody bothered to fix, or these files can make
any sense outside git repository?

Fix of the problem is quite trivial:

diff --git a/GNUmakefile.in b/GNUmakefile.in
index 15fba9f..beef51a 100644
--- a/GNUmakefile.in
+++ b/GNUmakefile.in
@@ -93,7 +93,7 @@ distdir-location:distdir:       rm -rf $(distdir)* $(dummy)
-       for x in `cd $(top_srcdir) && find . \( -name CVS -prune \) -o
\( -name .git -prune \) -o -print`; do \
+       for x in `cd $(top_srcdir) && find . \( -name CVS -prune \) -o
\( -name .git -prune \) -o \( \! -name ".git*" -print \)`; do \
file=`expr X$$x : 'X\./\(.*\)'`; \ if test -d "$(top_srcdir)/$$file" ;
then \ mkdir "$(distdir)/$$file" && chmod 777 "$(distdir)/$$file"; \
--                                                          Victor Wagner