The standard subversion repository layout is by project: proj1 /trunk /branches /br1 /br2 ... /tags /tag1 /tag2 ... proj2 /trunk /branches /br1 /br2 ... /tags /tag1 /tag2 ... ... With this layout, when you want to checkout the main development branch (aka head) of ZODB, you do: svn co svn+ssh://svn.zope.org/repos/ZODB/trunk ZODB That is, you need to include "/trunk" at the end and provide "ZODB" as the name of the output directory so as not to get a directory named "trunk". If you forget the "/trunk", you'll get a checkout that includes copies of all of the various tags and branches, which could be huge. I suggest, instead to use the following layout: proj1 proj2 tags /proj1 /tag1 /tag2 ... /proj2 /tag1 /tag2 ... branches /proj1 /br1 /br2 ... /proj2 /br1 /br2 ... With this layout, when you want to checkout the main development branch (aka head) of ZODB, you do: svn co svn+ssh://svn.zope.org/repos/ZODB which seems cleaner and less error prone. The only disadvantage I see in this layout is that we couldn't have projects named "tags" or "branches", but I could live with that. Alternatively, we could have a top-level trunk directory: trunk /proj1 /proj2 tags /proj1 /tag1 /tag2 ... /proj2 /tag1 /tag2 ... branches /proj1 /br1 /br2 ... /proj2 /br1 /br2 ... But that would require inclusion of a "/trunk" dead chicken in checkouts: svn co svn+ssh://svn.zope.org/repos/trunk/ZODB which seems unnecessary to me. Thoughts? Jim -- Jim Fulton mailto:jim@zope.com Python Powered! CTO (540) 361-1714 http://www.python.org Zope Corporation http://www.zope.com http://www.zope.org