See Bug 2580 http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=2580
Basically as of revision 35533 http://svn.collab.net/viewvc/svn?view=revision&revision=35533 (which means
Subversion release 1.6.0 and later), Subversion creates zombie processes whenever it accesses a repository via the
svn+ssh scheme on unixen (i.e. Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, NetBSD, etc.)
For a non-command line client, such as a Subversion GUI, that stays running for a while this is a big problem as system
resources get exhausted as the number of unreaped zombies piles up while the process continues to run.
For command line clients that generally exit right after performing the repository access, the operating system reaps
the zombies on behalf of the exiting process thereby masking the problem.
Please fix this ASAP.
Bug 2580 http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=2580 has extensive details about this including some
suggested patches to fix the problem.
Bug
Major