Michael, you seem to be operating under the assumption that the fact that the CPython VM assumes by default that Linux systems use consistent filesystem semantics is an accidental oversight.

It's not - it's a pervasive simplifying assumption that runs throughout various parts of the interpreter design, mainly in the form of scoping various settings to "the machine" based on the detected operating system that are in reality specific to a particular filesystem within the machine.

That's the reason what you propose is a feature request for Python 2.7 rather than a bug fix - you've picked one particular instance of that general assumption and proposed not making it anymore.

However, you've also indicated that Python 3 (and hence presumably the `importlib2` backport of the Python 3 import system to Python 2) have already removed that assumption in this particular case.

Hence my suggestion to discuss your concerns with Linux distribution providers - if something has changed in the past few years to make them more concerned about it, and they aren't satisfied with resolving it through their current Python 3 migration efforts [1,2], the use of `importlib2`, or the use of other filesystem interface bindings (such as PyFilesystem, GObject introspection, or Qt), then that would make a difference in the disposition of the issue report.

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Python
[2] http://fedora.portingdb.xyz/