Comment # 2 on bug 1020047 from Jan Matejek

This is a bug in bzr; it is messing with python's internals in a fragile way.
(well, messing with python internals in any case. that is bound to be fragile.)
Other software using python regexps won't be affected.

see upstream:
[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/bzr/+bug/1644003
[2] https://bugs.launchpad.net/bzr/+bug/1653002

reporters of [2] claim it is not a duplicate of [1], but AFAICT it is: Debian
provided a patch in 2.7.12 for issue that got into upstream only at 2.7.13;
indeed, the workaround suggested in [1] (replacing the "re.compile =
_real_re_compile" line with "pass") fixes the problem for me.

reassigning to bzr maintainer