The totally wonderful (some would even say "rad", but not me!) Ubuntu Linux became the first distribution I know of to ship contact-lookup-applet this week, when WartyWarthog was released in preview form. This did tickle my funny bone, as Ximian/Novell paid for its development via a Bounty. I've been informed [updated, thanks Luis] it will be in Novell Linux Desktop (due "soon") and SuSe 9.2, and there are rumours it will be in FC3 too.
What more proof do you need that RPM-based distributions are inferior?
NP: Like Water For Chocolate, Common