The function name is really ugly. The attached patch introduces an optional parameter to shutil.copy.

Thanks for the report.  Could you elaborate a bit on the rational for the change?  Aesthetics are usually not sufficient to change things; on the other hand, use of simplicity is a goal.

Is is easier to remember two functions for two uses or to have one function with a parameter?  Are users confused by the two functions with unhelpful names?  These are the kinds of questions to answer before considering breaking everyone’s code with a deprecation and removal.

Would you be willing to raise the issue on the python-ideas mailing list to get feedback?  Thanks in advance.

I like proposed changed.

If such a thing goes in then copytree() should also be taken into account and expose the same parameter. That would probably be inconsistent with copytree()'s copy_function parameter though.