Thorsten Kukuk: Yes, it is how rpm works. But if /etc/motd.rpmsave is created by rpm, then the motd was modified by sysadmin. (Otherwise it would be silently deleted.) As in this particular case, there is nothing to merge manually, and "Have a lot of fun..." did not change for a long time, I propose to add to the release spec file: %posttrans # /etc/motd was modified by sysadmin. Keep it as it is. if test -f /etc/motd.rpmsave ; then mv /etc/motd.rpmsave /etc/motd fi