Though I welcome the reopening of the bug for Python 3.0 I must say 
that plans of not fixing a core element rather surprises me.

I never believed Python to be a programming language with good Unicode 
integration. Several points were missing that would've been nice or 
even essential to have for good development with Unicode, most ignored 
for the sake of maintaining backward compatibility. This though is not 
the fault of the Unicode class itself and supporting packages.

Some modules like the one for CSV are lacking full Unicode support. 
But nevertheless the basic Python would always give you the 
possibility to use Unicode in (at least) a consistent way. For me 
raising exceptions does count as basic support like this.

So I still hope to see this solved for the 2.x versions which I read 
will be maintained even after the release of 3.0.