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i'll comment about the rest later, but re not understanding:

here is what ansi says: "If the file has been opened for
read/write, a read may not be followed by a write.
Or vice versa, without first calling either fflush(),
fseek(), fsetpos(), or rewind().
Unless EOF was the last character read by fread(). "

note the last sentence. python docs say that f.read() with
no size parameter will read all data until it hits EOF. this
means that any ansi c compliant implementation should
perform synchronization when you fread() an EOF. glibc
fopen(3) man page states that it follows this; it does not.
msvscrt docs do not state that it follows this; it does not.

so glibc promises ansi c compliance, but does not deliver.
msvscrt does not promise ansi c compliance and doesn't
deliver either, but at least it behaves as advertised in
this respect.

make sense?

-p