RenderTexture strangeness - Help appreciated!

I can't seem to figure out how RenderTextures behave in regards to linear/sRGB. It seems like while the Linear/sRGB flag alters the actual texture, it doesn't matter when the texture is read.

To test this, I have this very simple scene (Linear project setup):


The "quad gradient" is drawn with a very simple custom unlit shader that simply outputs uv.x.

Camera sRGB draws "quad gradient" into sRGB RenderTexture.
Texture result:


Camera Linear draws "quad gradient" into Linear RenderTexture.
Texture result:


(Notice the difference in color, which is to be expected.)

The "quad texture" is shaded with a regular unlit shader, using the RenderTexture from one of the above.
Camera default draws this Quad to screen.

And here's the strange part - the quad texture will look the same regardless of what texture is used:

When using linear RenderTexture:


When using sRGB texture:


They're both the same!

I found out that if you write the render texture into a Texure2D with the linear flag set to false, it will behave as expected:

Code (CSharp):

1. private Texture2D WriteIntoTexture(RenderTexture rt)
2. {
3.     var tex = new Texture2D(rt.width, rt.height, TextureFormat.ARGB32, true, false);
4.  
5.     RenderTexture.active = rt;
6.     tex.ReadPixels(new Rect(0, 0, rt.width, rt.height), 0, 0);
7.     tex.Apply();
8.  
9.     return tex;
10. }

But should this really be necessary? I'd prefer not wasting resources on doing that conversion.