On behalf of the Python development team and the Python community, I'm happy to announce the release candidates of Python 2.4.6 and 2.5.3. 2.5.3 is the last bug fix release of Python 2.5. Future 2.5.x releases will only include security fixes. According to the release notes, over 100 bugs and patches have been addressed since Python 2.5.1, many of them improving the stability of the interpreter, and improving its portability. 2.4.6 includes only a small number of security fixes. Python 2.6 is the latest version of Python, we're making this release for people who are still running Python 2.4. See the release notes at the website (also available as Misc/NEWS in the source distribution) for details of bugs fixed; most of them prevent interpreter crashes (and now cause proper Python exceptions in cases where the interpreter may have crashed before). Assuming no major problems crop up, a final release of Python 2.4.6 and 2.5.3 will follow in about a week's time. For more information on Python 2.4.6 and 2.5.3, including download links for various platforms, release notes, and known issues, please see: http://www.python.org/2.4.6 http://www.python.org/2.5.3 Highlights of the previous major Python releases are available from the Python 2.5 page, at http://www.python.org/2.4/highlights.html http://www.python.org/2.5/highlights.html Enjoy this release, Martin Martin v. Loewis martin@v.loewis.de Python Release Manager (on behalf of the entire python-dev team)