What use are these (rpm) entries in 'man'?

[Styma, Robert E (Robert)]

> Well, apart from not being very useful, it makes the man page for
> apropos (or man -k) wrong!
> 
...
> 
> Adding the (rpm) entries means that the whatis database is no longer a
> "set of database files containing short descriptions of system
> commands" because the things it puts in there are *not* system
> commands.
> 
> -- 
> Chris Green

It appears that a decision was made to use the whatis database for other
things and in the process damgaged the output of "man -k".  If it is
important
to reuse the database for other things, then it makes sense to fix
"man -k" to ignore the entries not related to manual pages.

Bob Styma
Phoenix, AZ