..but then it's not Py2 compatible any more, I guess?

Good point. Yes, that's true.

Could look at this as tough love: folks really shouldn't be using py2 anyway these days -- it's too embarrassing! 😸

Well, it's only so few instances, would be easy to accommodate with a couple of if/else/import-as at the top..

maybe import six would handle most of these.

I haven't used six a lot, but we have our experiences with future (and they are painful in the long run). These conenience modules just always might introduce obscure magic that can bite you when you least expect it.

In general, if it's only a couple of instances like here, just doing a conditional import at the top with renaming some imported items is by far the simplest solution. KISS.