The URL has been modified in this post, since the original mentioned an internal server. This test was done with an internal 4.4 server.

$ cat xmlrpconeoff.py
#!/usr/bin/python

import pprint
import xmlrpclib

url = "https://_SECRET_/xmlrpc.cgi"
product = "Virtualization Tools"

bz = xmlrpclib.ServerProxy(url)
ret = bz.Product.get({"names": [product],
                      "include_fields": ["name", "components"]})
pprint.pprint(ret)

$ python xmlrpconeoff.py 
{'products': [{'components': [{},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {},
                              {}],
               'name': 'Virtualization Tools'}]}


Against [Bugzilla 4.2], same code returns results like

{'default_assigned_to': 'Daniel Berrange',
                               'default_qa_contact': '',
                               'description': 'graphical console viewer for virtual machines',
                               'id': 87950,
                               'is_active': True,
                               'name': 'virt-viewer',
                               'sort_key': 0}

This change comes from upstream. I agree that it doesn't seem intuitive. I've filed a bug upstream for their comment. As it stands though, you'll need to change the include_fields value.

  -- simon

Just an update. Not only do upstream think it is a problem, but they have marked it as a blocker for 4.4rc2. I'm working on fixing the bug upstream. As soon as it is committed to bazaar, we'll inherit the change.

  -- simon

Okay, thanks simon.