Neon is required? The INSTALL that comes with 1.6.11 says that either neon or serf will give http access:
* libneon or libserf (OPTIONAL for client)
The Neon and Serf libraries both allow the Subversion client
to send HTTP requests. ... Your client can be compiled against either
libneon or libserf (or both), as they offer competing
implementations.
-y
