pep-8 vs. external interfaces?

[Roy Smith]

I'm building a Python language wrapper to an network protocol which
traditionally uses camelCase function names.  I'm trying to make the
new code pep-8 compliant, which means function names should be written
this_way() instead of thisWay().  I've got a couple of choices open to
me.

I could convert all the protocol names to pep-8 style mechanically.
This is not as much work as it seems; the lowest-level Python code is
already machine generated from a tabular description of the protocol.
It's about one more line of code to convert getLibraries() to
get_libraries().  This will leave the result the cleanest from the
Python point of view.  It'll also make the Python binding look a
little different from the C++, Java, Perl, etc, bindings.

Or, I could draw a line in the sand and say, "If it's a protocol
primitive, it stays as written.  Otherwise, it's pep-8".  That's a
little uglier because it's not always obvious to the user exactly
which names are protocol primitives and which are higher-level
operations.

I figure either way, somebody's going to complain that I did it
wrong :-)

I realize there's no single correct answer here.  I'm seeking input
from people who have faced this question before.  Which way did you
go?  In retrospect, was it the right decision?