Thanks for the context.

> A compatibility issue here is that the value provided by get_platform() is
> also used outside of Distutils, in particular by pkg_resources (provided by
> setuptools) and by pip, in both cases to help determine whether a binary
> distribution of an extension module is compatible with the python being used.

If your wording is correct, and get_platform() really is used to determine "the
python being used," then we could actually be improving things by fixing this.
Currently, get_platform() doesn't tell you the bitness of the *python* being
used, but the bitness of the *OS* being used (the two of which only differ on
32-on-64).