Am 14.02.2017 um 01:00 schrieb Paul Eggert:
> The same thing could happen to any global configuration file, too. There
> is no functional difference between a configuration file and a shell
> wrapper.

This is not true. Every package manager I know has special routines for 
handling configuration files and configuration file changes. Either by 
just saving new configuration files aside (pacman) or by diffing and 
integrating changes on request (apt/dpkg).