If the build system uses curl to download protobuf, it gets stuck on a redirect. It looks like curl -L should fix that.
make[3]: Entering directory '/home/muscle3/libmuscle/cpp/build/protobuf'
curl https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/releases/download/v3.7.1/protobuf-cpp-3.7.1.tar.gz
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
100 636 100 636 0 0 1242 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 1244
<html><body>You are being <a href="https://github-production-release-asset-2e65be.s3.amazonaws.com/23357588/3e209400-507c-11e9-9f78-69acbcd594df?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIWNJYAX4CSVEH53A%2F20200416%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20200416T113234Z&X-Amz-Expires=300&X-Amz-Signature=4da9ec664d1d2a6cf3511141c2974d787d190305cb78459f0cd178501e1f6f48&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&actor_id=0&repo_id=23357588&response-content-disposition=attachment%3B%20filename%3Dprotobuf-cpp-3.7.1.tar.gz&response-content-type=application%2Foctet-stream">redirected</a>.</body></html>tar xf protobuf-cpp-3.7.1.tar.gz
tar: protobuf-cpp-3.7.1.tar.gz: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
If the build system uses curl to download protobuf, it gets stuck on a redirect. It looks like
curl -L
should fix that.