git svn error when cloning/fetchinh

I get an error when trying to clone an svn repository using git svn. The error is:

Bizarre copy of UNKNOWN in subroutine entry at /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.14.2/i586-linux-thread-multi/SVN/Base.pm line 80.

this is being tracked at
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=710878

(no update yet though)