Today's pgjdbc release causing git clone issues

Hello,

I have a question about today's release of pgjdbc. I tried cloning down
the code on a RHEL7 box today, and I was confused when I couldn't switch
branches because of a conflict. I looked into it a little deeper, and
tried the following procedure:

git clone https://github.com/pgjdbc/pgjdbc.git
cd pgjdbc
git status

In running that command, 4 files have been auto-modified on the clone:
# modified: org/postgresql/test/ssl/SslTest.java
# modified: org/postgresql/translation/de.po
# modified: org/postgresql/util/PGTime.java
# modified: org/postgresql/util/PGTimestamp.java

This is unusual behavior for me. What's even stranger is that I cannot
switch branches because some of these files have conflicts. Doing some
research, I see that the new .gitattributes file has the following line in
it:

* text=auto

I found a link that discusses this issue a bit:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28145664/ignore-text-auto-in-gitattributes-file
Unfortunately, I've tried everything in the post, and the only thing that
works is to immediately git reset after clone, or to modify the
.gitattributes file.

Is this desired behavior? Does anyone have a suggestion what I need to do
to work around it?

Thank you,
-John