Configuration files in RPMs can have several attributes, one important one is 'noreplace' (i.e., "%config(noreplace) file-name").  This allows for configuration files that have been changed after the RPM has been installed to not be over-written when the RPM is updated -- for example with a later version.
This is very important, because you often want to customize your configuration -- that's what the configuration is for after all.  Without 'noreplace', your changes will be over-written by the updated RPM's "stock" configuration file.

I'm sad to see it can't be made available for 2.6/2.7.  I realize this is very old, but that's the version that's stock on RedHat Enterprise Linux -- which many of us are forced to use through our work environments.

On Thursday, March 13, 2014 5:24 AM, Éric Araujo <report@bugs.python.org> wrote:

>Éric Araujo added the comment:
>
>Can you give more information about this change?
>
>As a new feature, it cannot go into 2.7.
>
>
>----------
>components: +Distutils -Build
>nosy: +eric.araujo
>type:  -> enhancement
>versions: +Python 3.5 -Python 2.7
>
>_______________________________________
>Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org>
><http://bugs.python.org/issue20337>
>_______________________________________
>
>