diff --git a/Documentation/sphinx/kerneldoc.py b/Documentation/sphinx/kerneldoc.py
index d15e07f36881..39aa9e8697cc 100644
--- a/Documentation/sphinx/kerneldoc.py
+++ b/Documentation/sphinx/kerneldoc.py
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@
 # Please make sure this works on both python2 and python3.
 #
 
+import codecs
 import os
 import subprocess
 import sys
@@ -88,13 +89,10 @@ class KernelDocDirective(Directive):
         try:
             env.app.verbose('calling kernel-doc \'%s\'' % (" ".join(cmd)))
 
-            p = subprocess.Popen(cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE, universal_newlines=True)
+            p = subprocess.Popen(cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
             out, err = p.communicate()
 
-            # python2 needs conversion to unicode.
-            # python3 with universal_newlines=True returns strings.
-            if sys.version_info.major < 3:
-                out, err = unicode(out, 'utf-8'), unicode(err, 'utf-8')
+            out, err = codecs.decode(out, 'utf-8'), codecs.decode(err, 'utf-8')
 
             if p.returncode != 0:
                 sys.stderr.write(err)