diff --git a/pkgs/build-support/fetchgit/default.nix b/pkgs/build-support/fetchgit/default.nix
index 59e06c95ebba..982229cf8a5f 100644
--- a/pkgs/build-support/fetchgit/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/build-support/fetchgit/default.nix
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ in
    Cloning branches will make the hash check fail when there is an update.
    But not all patches we want can be accessed by tags.
 
-   The workaround is getting the last n commits so that it's likly that they
+   The workaround is getting the last n commits so that it's likely that they
    still contain the hash we want.
 
    for now : increase depth iteratively (TODO)
diff --git a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
index 186fa10a6aff..8fef507efbcd 100644
--- a/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
+++ b/pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
@@ -203,12 +203,25 @@ in
 
   fetchFromGitHub = {
     owner, repo, rev, name ? "${repo}-${rev}-src",
+    fetchSubmodules ? false,
     ... # For hash agility
-  }@args: fetchzip ({
-    inherit name;
-    url = "https://github.com/${owner}/${repo}/archive/${rev}.tar.gz";
-    meta.homepage = "https://github.com/${owner}/${repo}/";
-  } // removeAttrs args [ "owner" "repo" "rev" ]) // { inherit rev; };
+  }@args:
+  let
+    baseUrl = "https://github.com/${owner}/${repo}";
+    passthruAttrs = removeAttrs args [ "owner" "repo" "rev" "fetchSubmodules" ];
+  in if fetchSubmodules then
+    fetchgit ({
+      inherit name rev fetchSubmodules;
+      url = "${baseUrl}.git";
+    } // passthruAttrs)
+  else
+    # We prefer fetchzip in cases we don't need submodules as the hash
+    # is more stable in that case.
+    fetchzip ({
+      inherit name;
+      url = "${baseUrl}/archive/${rev}.tar.gz";
+      meta.homepage = "${baseUrl}/";
+    } // passthruAttrs) // { inherit rev; };
 
   fetchFromBitbucket = {
     owner, repo, rev, name ? "${repo}-${rev}-src",