OrderedDict is currently comparable to dict.

I think this is not logical, because a dict doesn't have order, and having an identical order is a necessary condition for a match.

I think that comparing an OrderedDict with a dict makes as much sense as comparing a tuple with a set, and that's currently not allowed. (Always returns False)

Here's a disturbing code snippet executed in Python 3.2a1:

>>> from collections import OrderedDict
>>> d1 = OrderedDict(((1, 2), (3, 4)))
>>> d2 = OrderedDict(((3, 4), (1, 2)))
>>> d1 == d2
False
>>> d1 == {1: 2, 3: 4} == d2
True

This was purposeful. See PEP 372.

Thanks Benjamin. Was there a discussion about this in the mailing list? If so can you give me a link to it?

That is the documented and tested behavior:  http://docs.python.org/library/collections.html#ordereddict-objects

"""
Equality tests between OrderedDict objects are order-sensitive and are implemented as list(od1.items())==list(od2.items()). Equality tests between OrderedDict objects and other Mapping objects are order-insensitive like regular dictionaries. This allows OrderedDict objects to be substituted anywhere a regular dictionary is used.
"""

It was a basic design objective for OrderedDicts to be substitutable for regular dictionaries (that is why it subclasses from dict).  This lets an OD be used just about anywhere in Python where a regular dict is expected.

Also look at:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liskov_substitution_principle