The Python tarfile module normally extracts links as copies, actually, in order to work across platforms.  (And it uses a similar loop approach, although in its case a recursion error will result if the symlinks are looped, rather than an infinite loop.)

Also, pytz is distributed in .egg form on PyPI, and eggs cannot contain symlinks (zipfiles don't support them), so I doubt the copying will cause any problems.

Nonetheless, if you could test the patch, it'd be helpful in getting this into the next release.  Thanks.

(Btw, as far as I know, ptyz is the only package with *any* symlinks in its source distribution, and I doubt it's by conscious choice OR requirement.  If you look at their .zip source distribution, you'll see that it also contains copies, rather than symlinks.)