diff --git a/pkgs/applications/networking/browsers/uzbl/src-for-experimental.nix b/pkgs/applications/networking/browsers/uzbl/src-for-experimental.nix
index 6866b4895167..7ee83fe5fece 100644
--- a/pkgs/applications/networking/browsers/uzbl/src-for-experimental.nix
+++ b/pkgs/applications/networking/browsers/uzbl/src-for-experimental.nix
@@ -5,5 +5,6 @@ rec {
    rev="847ddc83ccbd7964898980f3f4dd520937ea3bbe";
    url="git://github.com/Dieterbe/uzbl.git";
   
+   depth="100";
   
 }
diff --git a/pkgs/applications/networking/browsers/uzbl/src-info-for-experimental.nix b/pkgs/applications/networking/browsers/uzbl/src-info-for-experimental.nix
index 60750f7b90be..f2004980d599 100644
--- a/pkgs/applications/networking/browsers/uzbl/src-info-for-experimental.nix
+++ b/pkgs/applications/networking/browsers/uzbl/src-info-for-experimental.nix
@@ -3,4 +3,6 @@
   baseName = "uzbl-experimental";
   method = "fetchgit";
   rev = "origin/experimental";
+  extraVars = "depth";
+  eval_depth = "depth=50";
 }
diff --git a/pkgs/build-support/builder-defs/builder-defs.nix b/pkgs/build-support/builder-defs/builder-defs.nix
index 814ce460794c..fe4b16374a3d 100644
--- a/pkgs/build-support/builder-defs/builder-defs.nix
+++ b/pkgs/build-support/builder-defs/builder-defs.nix
@@ -546,11 +546,11 @@ let inherit (builtins) head tail trace; in
      sha256 = srcInfo.hash;
    };
 
-   fetchGitFromSrcInfo = srcInfo: fetchgit {
+   fetchGitFromSrcInfo = srcInfo: fetchgit ({
      url = srcInfo.url;
      rev = srcInfo.rev;
      sha256 = srcInfo.hash;
-   };
+   } // (if srcInfo ? depth then {inherit (srcInfo) depth;} else {}));
 }) // args
 
 # [1]: rewrite using '' instead of " so that indentation gets stripped. It's
diff --git a/pkgs/build-support/fetchgit/builder.sh b/pkgs/build-support/fetchgit/builder.sh
index e43a2e37726c..83a3157b498f 100644
--- a/pkgs/build-support/fetchgit/builder.sh
+++ b/pkgs/build-support/fetchgit/builder.sh
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ source $stdenv/setup
 
 header "exporting $url (rev $rev) into $out"
 
-git clone --depth 1 "$url" $out
+git clone --depth "$depth" "$url" $out
 if test -n "$rev"; then
   cd $out
   git checkout $rev
diff --git a/pkgs/build-support/fetchgit/default.nix b/pkgs/build-support/fetchgit/default.nix
index 3193057f3215..b8517245d28b 100644
--- a/pkgs/build-support/fetchgit/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/build-support/fetchgit/default.nix
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 {stdenv, git}:
-{url, rev ? "HEAD", md5 ? "", sha256 ? ""}:
+{url, rev ? "HEAD", md5 ? "", sha256 ? "", depth ? 1}:
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation {
   name = "git-export";
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation {
   outputHashMode = "recursive";
   outputHash = if sha256 == "" then md5 else sha256;
 
-  inherit url rev ;
+  inherit url rev depth;
 
   impureEnvVars = [
     # We borrow these environment variables from the caller to allow