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If you see an error like this:
cvs [export aborted]: cannot write /usr/local/myproj/CVSROOT/val-tags: \
Operation not permitted
it means the user CVS is running as does not have permission to write to the CVSROOT/val-tags file. This file stores valid tag names, to give CVS a fast way to determine what tags are valid. Unfortunately, CVS sometimes modifies this file even for operations that are read-only with respect to the repository, such as checking out a project.
This is a bug in CVS and may be fixed by the time you read this. Until then, the solution is either to make val-tags world-writeable or, failing that, to remove it or change its ownership to the user running the CVS operation. (You'd think just changing the permissions would be enough, but on several occasions I've had to change the ownership, too.)