The base class, ConfigParser.RawConfigParser does not inherit object and
therefore it is a classic class.

Test script run with my normal python installation:

$ /usr/bin/python -V
Python 2.5.2

$ /usr/bin/python arska/configparser.py
bar

And run with uptodate svn checkout with modified ConfigParser.py

$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib /usr/local/bin/python -V
Python 2.6b1+

$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib arska/configparser.py
Setting value=bar
Getting value=bar
bar

Platform: Kubuntu 8.04.
$ uname -a
Linux laphroaig 2.6.24-19-generic #1 SMP Wed Jun 4 15:10:52 UTC 2008
x86_64 GNU/Linux

The test script and diff -u as attachments.

Why do you think ConfigParser should be a new-style class?

New-style classes make object orientated programming considerably more
convenient. For example one can use property() instead of __setitem__ et
al. There's super(). This is, of course, not a serious problem and one
can always implement a composite class which inherits from object and
has a configparser as an attribute.

This would be a nice improvement and as far as I know completely safe.

When creating your own subclass, you can always inherit from object too
to create a new-style class.