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
Like get_json_config but does not parse result as JSON