1) I (submitter) didn't specify what I expected to see:

os.path.normpath('/etc/passwd/') --> '/etc/passwd/'

So, I agree with the latest consensus, but definitely not with the "/etc/passwd/." version...


2) I can't draw any explicit normalization rules from the excerpts of the POSIX standard posted by iszegedi. Saying that "dir/" should be treated as "dir/." doesn't mean that it is the normalized version of the first one. - I actually read implicitly that the first one is the habitual one that needs interpretation.

And I think everybody agrees that - beeing the same or not - "dir/." is unusual.

3) I don't know what this is good for in the proposal:
path = path.rstrip()

It removes significant whitespace from the path, what must be avoided.