Re: "fatal: Untracked working tree file 'so-and-so' would be overwritten by merge"

Linus Torvalds [off-list ref] writes:

If the local index doesn't change, we should not print out the "Removing 
'so-and-so'" message, but we should also not even _touch_ that file, 
because it was already "gone" as far as the local tree was concerned.

Agreed?

Yes.