[destilled from http://bugs.debian.org/96111]

Currently python tries to write the .py[co] files even
in situations, where it will fail, like on read-only
mounted file systems.

In other situations I don't want python trying to write
the compiled files, i.e. having installed the modules
as root as part of a distribution, compiled them
correctly, there is no need to write them. Or compiling
.py files which are configuration files.

Is it reasonable to add an option to python
(--dont-write-compiled-files) to the interpreter, which
doesn't write them? This would not affect existing code
at all.