Other OSs have special cases in get_platform() to specifically limit the 
amount of code, and make proper decisions with regard to package 
compatibility. 

Here's an example this commit for Mac OS X: http://svn.python.org/view?
view=rev&revision=67988

It was discussed here at this issue: http://bugs.python.org/issue4064

Another example is how linux has no version information at all (ie: 
linux-i586). Perhaps this is why the easy_install authors thought their 
package system worked. They only tested it on linux?

Yes I agree that obviously this cannot be changed for 2.6. But it would 
be great to get this code in for python 2.7

Anyway, this is ultimately your call, since I don't have the 50,000 foot 
view over the entire situation. 

FWIW, I've had to patch python in a very large set of client 
installations. This patch has become a routine in order to unbreak 
python wrt to platform dependent packages.