In Python 2 envrionments, we depend on the 'future' and 'configparser'
packages now, that provide compatibility for Python 3 solutions.

Strings (e.g. output of subprocesses) is now decoded to Unicode strings using
the system locale's default encoding. This can crash in some environments
without a proper locale setting.

This commit introduces some changes that rely on the Python 2 'future'
package. It also brings decoding of input strings according to the system
locale's default encoding, which requires a proper system locale to be
defined.

… Python 3 compatibility

This breaks the build on systems without Python 3 or the required
Python 3 packages.