Comment 3 for bug 651441

The difference comes from rpm-4.4.x python bindings incorrectly implementing a "print" method for various types, including the "ds":
http://docs.python.org/c-api/typeobj.html#tp_print

In 4.4.x those print methods end up literally calling fprintf() on stdout when it should just represent itself as a string or such, this bogosity has been removed in newer versions. You would generally only see this difference when using the python interpreter interactively, in an actual script the print method wouldn't be invoked in a situation like this.