On Alpine, apropos(1) is available in a separate subpackages and not installed by default. For this reason, having this warning enabled by default does not make much sense since we don't use mandoc.db by default. diff -upr a/main.c b/main.c --- a/main.c 2021-09-19 18:21:40.000000000 +0200 +++ b/main.c 2021-09-19 19:40:28.711594083 +0200 @@ -822,8 +822,6 @@ fs_lookup(const struct manpaths *paths, return globres; found: - warnx("outdated mandoc.db lacks %s(%s) entry, run %s %s", - name, sec, BINM_MAKEWHATIS, paths->paths[ipath]); if (res == NULL) free(file); else if (file == NULL)