diff --git a/dev/make-distribution.sh b/dev/make-distribution.sh
index e43e4afbd0e2..7cd9ea7889e8 100755
--- a/dev/make-distribution.sh
+++ b/dev/make-distribution.sh
@@ -294,7 +294,11 @@ mkdir "$DISTDIR/conf"
 cp "$SPARK_HOME"/conf/*.template "$DISTDIR/conf"
 cp "$SPARK_HOME/README.md" "$DISTDIR"
 cp -r "$SPARK_HOME/bin" "$DISTDIR"
-cp -r "$SPARK_HOME/python" "$DISTDIR"
+if command -v git && command -v cpio && git rev-parse --git-dir 2>/dev/null; then
+  git ls-files -z "$SPARK_HOME/python" | cpio -0pdm "$DISTDIR"
+else
+  cp -r "$SPARK_HOME/python" "$DISTDIR"
+fi
 
 # Remove the python distribution from dist/ if we built it
 if [ "$MAKE_PIP" == "true" ]; then