This doesn't fix the problem but it does explain some things.
http://hudson.zones.apache.org/hudson/job/SpamAssassin-trunk/3096/testReport/make_test/t_basic_lint_t/test______1/
The build test has been failing in this way ever since the loadplugin
for EmailBL.pm was added to v330.pre in the test. What is different is
that Hudson is reporting it as an unstable build instead of treating it
as OK.
This still leaves open the question as to what changed in the Hudson
build on June 12 when it started getting noisy about this failure, and
it certainly leaves open the question as to what to do about it, but at
least that is one part of it cleared up.
I still would like to know what the t/log/localrules.tmp/ dirctory is
supposed to do that is different from t/log/test_rules_copy/.
-- sidney