[tex-live] pretest: epstopdf overwrites existing files

[Uwe Siart]

Angelo Graziosi <angelo.graziosi at alice.it> writes:

> In any case, it seems that it happens only with PDF files which are
> older than EPS ones.

But I think it should not happen at all. The assumption behind this
feature is that the PDFs are derivated from the EPSs. But this is not
generally true.

Imagine an author who uses PDF graphics with transparency (a PDF 1.6
feature) and EPS versions of the same but without transparency. It may
further happen that this author received those files from a third person
and is unable to recover those files (because he is not the creator of
those graphics or because he lacks access to the creating software).

Now unsuspectingly he calls 'pdflatex' after a TL update and his
transparent PDF graphics are lost forever. Ruined by a harmless latex
run. TeX destructed the document sources. What a nightmare! Ok, he could
have avoided this if only he knew about the new magic command. But how
many users will fall into that trap during the first 2-3 years?

-- 
Uwe