Here's a link to Yet Another ancient RFE:

     https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=128804

There's nothing at all wrong with the patch to add syntax for
specifying per-file dependencies.

(aside) Another ancient RFE is to permit per-file versioning,
basically something like
     Requires: /path/to/file = E:V-R
syntax, there's certainly room for file versions in the
existing {N,EVR,F} triple format stored in *.rpm metadata.

I dinna add at the time (in 2004) mostly because multilib
was new and raw and controversial, and I could not justfiy
the risk of package monkeys screwing up @redhat.com packages.

Well, in 2008, multilib is still new and raw and controversial (and
rather pointless imho, ymmv) and there's really very little reason
not to add the patch in order to enhance Darwinian evolution and
let lusers self-select as needed.

There's several other useful patches done by Mark Hatle that have
never been added to rpm. One of the most important is a patch to
permit macros like %{_bindir} in *.rpm file paths in order to  
reimplement
--relocate (which is a dreadful hack imho) in rpm. Most of the
necessary preliminaries for reimplementing --relocate using
macros have already been added to rpm for several years.

What remains to be done is the retrofit of macros into file paths
during --rebuilddb. That's what Mark's other patch accomplishes.

hth

73 de Jeff