@r.david.murray, @lemburg: So, can I commit my patch?

> However, it is still possible to have that path contain weird
> characters, so the example is still valid.

It's not only a question of "weird" characters. Use case of #8611: install Python in a directory with a name not encodable to the filesystem encoding and try run Python. Install or use a Python installed in an external media like an USB key (encoding problem is not a rare problem with USB keys).

On Windows, it's quite easy to find a character not encodable to the filesystem encoding (mbcs). Eg. Ł for codepage 1252. On Linux, any non-ASCII can be used if you run Python with C locale (locale encoding: ascii).

#4352 and #8988 (Windows issues, so mbcs encoding) are directly related to #8611.