I think I understand the source of your confusion. The directions you're
reading are for setting up a local repository -- i.e. you want to develop
your own code and maintain your own revisions.
 
What you want to do is use CVS to download the latest version of Maximus,
from the SourceForge CVS repository. This still requires the installation
of the CVS package, but no real hoop jumping.
 
# cvs -d:pserver:anonymous{at}cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/maximus login
(press enter for password)
# cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous{at}cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/maximus co
maximus -r Maximus3_03b
(wait)
# tar -zcvf max-3.03-etc.tar.gz
# cd maximus
# ./configure
# make build
(adjust config files, etc)
# make install
 
The cvs lines above haven't been tested (but should work?), as
SourceForge's CVS server appears to be being quite bitchy right now (known
issue).
 
Wes

--- Maximus/2 3.01