Thanks, but I'm happy with the current tar files. They are a working CVS checkout, so that people who use them can then use the recipes in cvs(1) [9 man cvs] to update their trees. The one you linked to is not a working anything checkout. I haven't touched the tar file generation in over a year so "work and trouble" is quite the exaggeration.
I have changed the script that generates the tar files to use the Plan 9 tar. Now there will be no SCHILY.* extensions for GNU tar to whine about. Maybe that will kill off this myth. Russ