See also issue15795. It would be good to make shutil, zipfile and tarfile interfaces consistent.

I think we need more graduated interface matching coretools.

"""
      --preserve[=ATTR_LIST]
              preserve the specified attributes (default: mode,ownership,timestamps), if possible additional attributes: context, links, xattr, all

       --no-preserve=ATTR_LIST
              don't preserve the specified attributes
"""

This means that we should add preserve_mode, preserve_ownership, preserve_time, etc parameters. preserve_ownership should control also copying of suid/sgid/sticky bits. copy()'s defaults will be preserve_mode=True, preserve_ownership=False, preserve_time=False, copy2()'s defaults (corresponding to "cp -p" behavior) will be preserve_mode=True, preserve_ownership=True, preserve_time=True.