This bug has been copied from bug #801873 and has been proposed to be backported to 5.8 z-stream (EUS).
Technical note added. If any revisions are required, please edit the "Technical Notes" field accordingly. All revisions will be proofread by the Engineering Content Services team. New Contents: An incomplete fix for behavior of the "mv --backup" command, that was released with the RHBA-2011:1074 errata advisory, caused the "cp --backup" command to work incorrectly. When used with a directory as a source argument, the "cp --backup" command did not backup individual files within the directory but whole directory. This update corrects this problem and the "--backup" feature of the "cp" utility now works as intended again.
Since the problem described in this bug report should be resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated files, follow the link below. If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2012-0408.html