3.3 adds the *xattr() extended attribute functions on Linux.  shutil implements a new internal function(_copyxattr) which copies these extended attributes.  However, it's only used in shutil.copy2().  I assert that shutil.copystat() should also preserve this metadata.  (Which, having subsumed this functionality, means that shutil.copy2() would no longer need to explicitly call it.)

Also: it might be worth considering taking the same approach _copyxattr uses for the other conditional functionality (see "def lookup" inside copystat).  Computing platform support at import time instead of runtime looks cleaner.

Georg, how much of this (if any) do you consider a 3.3 bugfix?