I can confirm Peter's results, and also took a stab at improving the
reproducibility. I used his the file provided here, saving as two
different .org files, "numbered-min.org" and "un-numbered-min.org":
- http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2014-02/msg01035.html

The only differences between these two lines is in the #+options line.
- numbered-min.org contains #+options: num:t toc:nil
- un-numbered-min.org contains #+options: num:nil toc:nil

I used `emacs -Q`, and then `M-x load-file`, followed by loading this
minimal config:

#+begin_src min-config

;; change to your org path!
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.elisp/org.git/lisp/")
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.elisp/org.git/contrib/lisp")

(setq koma-article-class
      '("koma-article"
        "\\documentclass[11pt]{scrartcl}"
        ("\\section{%s}" . "\\section*{%s}")
        ("\\subsection{%s}" . "\\subsection*{%s}")
        ("\\subsubsection{%s}" . "\\subsubsection*{%s}")
        ("\\paragraph{%s}" . "\\paragraph*{%s}")
        ("\\subparagraph{%s}" . "\\subparagraph*{%s}")))

(progn
  (require 'ox-latex)
  (add-to-list 'org-latex-classes koma-article-class t))

#+end_src

Files were exported as usual with `C-c C-e l p` for LaTeX/pdf output.

Here's a pastebin of the result I get from using diff --side-by-side
on the two .tex files when using num:t vs. num:nil in Org:
- http://pastebin.com/wkKYWhb7

The only difference is \section{} vs. \section*{}.

Here's a diff of the latex output:
- http://pastebin.com/vsZH2Hnf

Other than the file names, the only differences are the page numbers
where overfull errors occur. Even the *sizes* of the overfull \hbox
and \vbox errors are identical. In the un-numbered version, the error
references page [2], and in the numbered it mentions pages [2] [3].
(Refer to the pastebin link above to track down any other
discrepancies.)

PDFs from each are attached. For me, 7.8in with numbered sections
results in 3 pages, while 7.9in results in 4 pages with a blank 3rd
page. It's very odd to me that un-numbered would allow 8.5in to not
roll onto the next page, while it actually takes 7.8in to get it to
fit on the numbered version. That's a huge difference, and intuitively
I would have figured we stumbled on some sort of very small boundary
condition, not something that requires a 0.7in difference to fix.

I searched things like "latex page break 'section*' vs section" with
no obvious lead on why the two section styles would be different.
Regarding a bug report, if that's what this is, I just googled "latex
bugs" and got this page as the first hit:
- http://latex-project.org/bugs.html


Best regards,
John


On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 8:48 AM, Peter Davis <pfd@pfdstudio.com> wrote:
>
> Here are the two LaTeX files. The only differences, apart from creation
> time, are the the use of \section* instead of \section, so perhaps this is a
> LaTeX bug.
>
> Anyone know how to report that?
>
> -pd
>
> --
> ----
> Peter Davis
> The Tech Curmudgeon
> www.techcurmudgeon.com
>