From Fedora Project Wiki
Motivation
Current usage of alternatives is inconsistent, and rpm -qf /some/file will often say the file is unowned, even if it's been created by some package, which is especially misleading and annoying in case of binaries.
Using %ghost
%files ... %ghost %{_bindir}/foo
Pros:
- allows globs and generated file lists
- rpm -qf /usr/bin/foo works
- yum install /usr/bin/foo works
Cons:
- duplicates in %files are forbidden by FPG.
Using Provides:
Provides: %{_bindir}/foo
Pros:
- rpm -qf /usr/bin/foo works
- yum install /usr/bin/foo works
- repoquery --whatprovides /usr/bin/foo works
Cons:
- unwieldy with lots of alternativized files