[Distutils] PEP 241 checked in, and 1.5.2 compatibility

[A.M. Kuchling]

I've checked in the patch implementing PEP 241, unchanged from the
last version posted to SourceForge.  If you notice problems before
Friday, when 2.1b2 is supposed to be released, please let me know
*immediately*.  

Also, I backed out the conversion to string methods that was performed
on some of the files, so the CVS tree should work with Python 1.5.2
again.  If you're still using 1.5.2, please let me know if you run
into problems.  

I'll wrap up a 1.0.2pre1 release in a few days, assuming no problems
show up in the meantime.

--amk