Why does CVS COPY a file (binary) to tag it? Can this be overridden?

[bdcutler2001]

We have noticed that when we tag a binary file, CVS makes a copy of 
it to do the tagging operation.  Problem is, the copy is in the 
file's directory - not a common space like /tmp.

This becomes an issue for us because we have some ,v binaries that in 
the 100s of Mbs in size.  We run out of repository space when the 
users try to tag these files.

Is there any way to tell CVS to use /tmp instead?  Better yet ... any 
way to change this behaviour?

Has anyone else seen this behaviour?

Brian Cutler
UNIX CM