http://docs.python.org/3.4/library/functions.html#open says "newline controls how universal newlines mode works (it only applies to text mode)."

My reading of this when I saw it was that newline= doesn't do anything unless universal newlines mode is enabled. This is untrue, and you can infer it's untrue from the following lines, but then the docs appear to contradict themselves. Please fix to say something more along the lines of "newline controls how newlines are read and written. It only applies to text mode."

The interactions with universal newlines mode are explained in the following text, so they don't need to be called out upfront. newline does more than just that.