diff --git a/bootstrap.conf b/bootstrap.conf
index c06ee4ca5479a432dc885448571be40f2e5e4d58..783b3a3da7e6c409d21b8a71a35ad229418ca423 100644
--- a/bootstrap.conf
+++ b/bootstrap.conf
@@ -196,10 +196,7 @@ local_gl_dir=gnulib/local
 # Build prerequisites
 # Note that some of these programs are only required for 'make dist' to
 # succeed from a fresh git checkout; not all of these programs are
-# required to run 'make dist' on a tarball.  As a special case, we want
-# to require the equivalent of the Fedora python-devel package, but
-# RHEL 5 lacks the witness python-config package; we hack around that
-# old environment below.
+# required to run 'make dist' on a tarball.
 buildreq="\
 autoconf   2.59
 automake   1.9.6
@@ -212,19 +209,11 @@ patch      -
 perl       5.5
 perl::XML::XPath -
 pkg-config -
-python-config -
 rpcgen     -
 tar        -
 xmllint	   -
 xsltproc   -
 "
-# Use rpm as a fallback to bypass the bootstrap probe for python-config,
-# for the sake of RHEL 5; without requiring it on newer systems that
-# have python-config to begin with.
-if `(${PYTHON_CONFIG-python-config} --version;
-     test $? -lt 126 || rpm -q python-devel) >/dev/null 2>&1`; then
-  PYTHON_CONFIG=true
-fi
 
 # Automake requires that ChangeLog and AUTHORS exist.
 touch AUTHORS ChangeLog || exit 1