Michael, please do not reopen feature requests that have been declared out of scope for maintenance releases.

Python 2.7 DOES NOT support filesystem semantics that differ from the "default" semantics for the host operating system. Even Python 3 requires that the filesystems attached be at least somewhat consistent (e.g. using a common filesystem encoding) if you want to use the default Python-level APIs.

If you wish to pursue this topic further, please take it to the issue tracker for your preferred Linux distribution and convince *them* that this is an operating system level bug in their system Python installation. If multiple Linux distributions agree that this is a bug that should be fixed rather than a new feature, and are willing to carry a patch to address it, then that will add weight to your argument that the change should be applied in an upstream maintenance release.

In the meantime, folks that really want the behaviour you propose may upgrade to Python 3, or potentially explore the importlib2 backport of the Python 3 import system to the Python 2 series.