1.4 has been branched in CVS. From henceforth, to checkout the stable 1.4 branch use the tag: sword-1-4-x I usually keep both branches on my box like so: $ cvs checkout -r sword-1-4-x sword $ mv sword sword-1.4.x $ cvs checkout sword $ mv sword sword-1.5.x An update ('cvs update -d') in the corresponding directory will update from the correct branch.