Hacky workaround for old installs of the library on systems without python-future that were
    keeping the 2to3 update from working after auto-update.

def bytes_hack(buf):
    """
    Hacky workaround for old installs of the library on systems without python-future that were
    keeping the 2to3 update from working after auto-update.
    """
    ub = None
    if sys.version_info > (3,):
        ub = buf
    else:
        ub = bytes(buf)

    return ub