Unable to use a Provider<java.nio.file.Path> as an artifact for the maven-publish plugin

[Adrodoc]

Using a Provider<java.nio.file.Path> as an artifact for the maven-publish-Plugin does not work in Gradle 6.6 anymore. Using a Path (sun.nio.fs.WindowsPath) instance directly still works.

Expected Behavior

The file my-artifact.txt should be published into the local maven repository.

Current Behavior

You get the following error:

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':generatePomFileForArtifactoryPublication'.
> Cannot convert provided value (my-artifact.txt) to a file.

Context

This works in Gradle 6.5.1 and below, but stops working in Gradle 6.6. I also tested all newer versions up to 6.7.1, they are all affected.

May be related to #11054.

Steps to Reproduce

Execute gradlew publishToMavenLocal in this project: gradle-issue-15711.zip

For reference here is the build.gradle:

apply plugin: 'maven-publish'

wrapper { gradleVersion = '6.6' }

group = 'org.gradle'
ext.artifactId = 'issue-15711'
version = '1.0.0'

publishing {
  publications {
    artifactory(MavenPublication) {
      artifactId = project.artifactId
      // Works in Gradle 6.5.1 and Gradle 6.6
//      artifact java.nio.file.Path.of('my-artifact.txt')

      // Works in Gradle 6.5.1 but not Gradle 6.6
      artifact provider { java.nio.file.Path.of('my-artifact.txt') }
    }
  }
}

Your Environment

Build scan URL: https://gradle.com/s/qxutkwm5vnfdq

user@PC MINGW64 /c/.../gradle-issue-15711
$ ./gradlew -v

------------------------------------------------------------
Gradle 6.6
------------------------------------------------------------

Build time:   2020-08-10 22:06:19 UTC
Revision:     d119144684a0c301aea027b79857815659e431b9

Kotlin:       1.3.72
Groovy:       2.5.12
Ant:          Apache Ant(TM) version 1.10.8 compiled on May 10 2020
JVM:          1.8.0_162 (Oracle Corporation 25.162-b12)
OS:           Windows 7 6.1 amd64

[Adrodoc]

Is there any update on this? Why was it removed from the Milestone?

[Adrodoc]

A workaround is to use a Closure:

artifact { java.nio.file.Path.of('my-artifact.txt') }

Or wrap the provider in a Closure:

artifact { provider { java.nio.file.Path.of('my-artifact.txt') } }

[Adrodoc]

This bug is quite annoying for me as it prevents a straight forward update to Gradle's Lazy Configuration, which would be a big improvement. I don't want to tell all my users that they now have to add a workaround for this bug.
I would be very grateful if this gets fixed and it seems like it can't be that difficult. It would at least be helpful to know why this was removed from the milestone 7.1 RC1.