When sfFinder->relative is used with follow_link, the result is the entire path to the link. This becomes an issue in sfApplicationConfiguration where the entire link path is returned instead of the relative path:
public function getPluginPaths()
{
$pluginPaths = array();
$finder = sfFinder::type('dir')->maxdepth(0)->follow_link()->relative();
$projectPlugins = $finder->in(sfConfig::get('sf_plugins_dir'));
// project plugins
foreach ($projectPlugins as $plugin)
{
// $pluginPaths[] = sfConfig::get('sf_plugins_dir').'/'.$plugin;
$pluginPaths[] = sfConfig::get('sf_plugins_dir').'/'.basename($plugin); // hack with basename
}