docs: def get_config(config_spec):
          """Like get_json_config but does not parse result as JSON"""
          config_file = None
          if config_spec.startswith("http"):
              # URL: fetch it
              config_file = urllib.urlopen(config_spec)
          else:
              # string: open file with that name
              config_file = open(config_spec)
          config = json.load(config_file)
          # Close any open files
          try:
              config_file.close()
          except:
              pass
          return config