In some email I received from Todd Vierling, sie wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Nov 2001, Darren Reed wrote:
> 
> : > Also, how up-to-date is your cvs client?
> :
> : 1.9
> 
> Hm.  I'd seriously suggest using 1.10 or later.  There are *lots* of bugs in
> 1.9, and something in the -ko handling may have triggered one in your
> client.  I'm not sure what would have caused this otherwise.

Updating to 1.11 seems to have resolved the madness.

Darren