> As a Python user (and not a committer), I disagree.
>
> As an user, I don't care too much where the function should be placed
> (although I believe os or sys are sensible choices). What I do care is
> that I want a extremely simple function that will "just work". Don't
> make me add code for handling all the extra cases, such code should be
> inside the function.

For what it's worth, as a Python committer, I agree with you.
Python is a very high level language, and I think the standard library
should be as natural and offer the same productivity gain as the core
language does.
Exposing to the user a mere wrapper around a syscall/library just
doesn't make sense to me. Sure, it should be made available for those
who want/need to do low-level system programming (and I'm one of
those), but the vast majority of users want something higher level
than the POSIX/Windows library.