diff -Naur rsync-HEAD-20090605-2003GMT/xattrs.c rsync-HEAD-20090605-2003GMT-patch/xattrs.c
--- rsync-HEAD-20090605-2003GMT/xattrs.c	2009-04-26 14:43:32.000000000 +0000
+++ rsync-HEAD-20090605-2003GMT-patch/xattrs.c	2009-07-08 03:50:58.000000000 +0000
@@ -1008,6 +1008,8 @@
 	 && fst.st_uid == F_OWNER(file) && fst.st_gid == F_GROUP(file)) {
 		/* xst.st_mode will be 0 if there's no current stat xattr */
 		if (xst.st_mode && sys_lremovexattr(fname, XSTAT_ATTR) < 0) {
+			if (errno == EPERM && S_ISLNK(fst.st_mode))
+				return 0;
 			rsyserr(FERROR_XFER, errno,
 				"delete of stat xattr failed for %s",
 				full_fname(fname));