git 1.4.0 usability problem

Now that kernel 2.6.17 is out, I updated all my repositories to be based 
against that kernel.  And for each repository I updated, my merge was 
rejected, due to an error similar to:

fatal: Untracked working tree file '.gitignore' would be overwritten by merge.

I am only able to merge if I delete files in the working directory, so 
that git stops complaining on merge.

This behavior is new with git 1.4.0, which Fedora Extras just added.  I 
verified that merges work as expected in git 1.3.3, the last version 
Fedora Extras shipped prior to 1.4.0.

This behavior is a definite regression, that impacts workflow :(

Here is how to reproduce:

git clone -l $url/torvalds/linux-2.6.git tmp-2.6
cd tmp-2.6
cp .git/refs/tags/v2.6.12 .git/refs/heads/tmp
git checkout -f tmp
git pull . master
# watch OBVIOUS FAST-FORWARD MERGE complain about untracked
# working tree files

Regards,

	Jeff