Mailman 3 February 2021 - python-committers

Python Language Summit 2021 Signups Are Now Open
by Łukasz Langa 22 Mar '21

22 Mar '21

I’m happy to announce that we’ve opened the sign-up forms for the 2021 Python Language Summit! TL;DR When: Tuesday, May 11, 2021 (4 hours) and Wednesday, May 12, 2021 (4 hours). Exact times TBD depending on attendee timezones. Where: Online via Zoom (link will be sent via email to attendees) Co-chairs: Mariatta Wijaya & Łukasz Langa Blogger: Joanna Jablonski Sign up to attend and actively participate: https://forms.gle/cgmGnmQMDhD2mhHY8 <https://forms.gle/cgmGnmQMDhD2mhHY8> (closes after March 22nd, 2021 AoE) Propose a topic: https://forms.gle/Jui9mxsHrB4fVvAB8 <https://forms.gle/Jui9mxsHrB4fVvAB8> (closes after March 22nd, 2021 AoE) To get an idea of past Python Language Summits, you can read these blog posts: 2020: Python Software Foundation News: The 2020 Python Language Summit <https://pyfound.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-2020-python-language-summit.html> 2019: http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-2019-python-language-summit.html <http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-2019-python-language-summit.html> 2018: The 2018 Python Language Summit [LWN.net] <https://lwn.net/Articles/754152/> 2017: The 2017 Python Language Summit [LWN.net] <https://lwn.net/Articles/723251/> Do I need to sign up if I’m a Python core developer? Yes please! While in the past we have limited attendance to 50 people, this time, due to virtual format, we will be a bit more flexible, but will still keep it small and manageable. We aren’t planning to go beyond 80 participants. Please register to reserve your space. Can I sign up if I’m not a Python core developer? Yes you can. In the past, we had quite a number of participants who were not Python core devs. Among them were maintainers and representatives from BeeWare, CircuitPython, PSF board member, PyCharm, PyPA, etc. Register if you want to participate. Note that until you hear back from us, your attendance is not confirmed. As explained in the question above, our “space” is more flexible than usual, but in the interest of maintaining a vigorous discussion space, we might still be unable to invite everyone who signs up. What kind of topics are covered? Python Language Summit is a special event with very specific audience: Python core developers. Ideally your topic is not an “announcement” or “project status” but rather something that will encourage further discussion and questions. The more controversial, the better. An open issue, group of issues, or a PEP that is awaiting decision are all good topics to propose. You can also further explain why this is better discussed in person instead of online. According to last year’s feedback, our audience prefer more discussions and shorter talks. Who can present a talk? Anyone, even if you’re not a Python core developer. However, please understand that we will have to be selective as space and time are limited. In particular, we are prioritizing active core contributors, as well as those who we believe will be able to improve the quality of the discussions at the event and bring a more diverse perspective to core Python developers. Note that your topic is not confirmed until you hear back from us. Code of Conduct PyCon’s Code of Conduct <https://us.pycon.org/2020/about/code-of-conduct/> applies and will be enforced. Thanks! @mariatta <https://discuss.python.org/u/mariatta> & @ambv <https://discuss.python.org/u/ambv>

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[RELEASE] Python 3.9.2 and 3.8.8 are now available
by Łukasz Langa 19 Feb '21

19 Feb '21

Convinced of the wonders of free two-day deliveries, I’m pleased to present you Python 3.9.2 and 3.8.8. Get them from: https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-392/ <https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-392/> https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-388/ <https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-388/> Next up, the last full regular maintenance release of Python 3.8 is planned for May 3rd 2021, after which it will shift to source releases only for security bug fixes only. Maintenance releases for the 3.9 series will continue at regular bi-monthly intervals, with 3.9.3 planned for early May 2021. Why the expedited final release? This release, just as the candidate before it, contains two security fixes: bpo-42938 <https://bugs.python.org/issue42938>: Avoid static buffers when computing the repr of ctypes.c_double and ctypes.c_longdouble values. This issue was assigned CVE-2021-3177 <https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2021-3177>. bpo-42967 <https://bugs.python.org/issue42967>: Fix web cache poisoning vulnerability by defaulting the query args separator to &, and allowing the user to choose a custom separator. This issue was assigned CVE-2021-23336 <https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2021-23336>. Since the announcement of the release candidates for 3.9.2 on 3.8.8, we received a number of inquiries from end users urging us to expedite the final releases due to the security content, especially CVE-2021-3177 <https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2021-3177>. This took us somewhat by surprise since we believed security content is cherry-picked by downstream distributors from source either way, and the RC releases provide installers for everybody else interested in upgrading in the meantime. It turns out that release candidates are mostly invisible to the community and in many cases cannot be used due to upgrade processes which users have in place. In turn, the other active release managers and I decided to stop providing release candidates for bugfix versions. Starting from now on after the initial 3.x.0 final release, all subsequent releases are going to be provided as is in bi-monthly intervals. The release calendar PEPs for 3.8 and 3.9 have been updated accordingly. On the severity of CVE-2021-3177 We recommend you upgrade your systems to Python 3.8.8 or 3.9.2. Our understanding is that while the CVE is listed as “remote code execution”, practical exploits of this vulnerability as such are very unlikely due the following conditions needing to be met for successful RCE: pass an untrusted floating point number from a remote party to ctypes.c_double.from_param (note: Python floating point numbers were not affected); have that object be passed to repr() (for instance through logging); have that float point number be valid machine code; have the buffer overflow overwrite the stack at exactly the right place for the code to get executed. In fact, Red Hat’s evaluation of the vulnerability was consistent with ours. They write: “the highest threat from this vulnerability is to system availability <https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/cve-2021-3177>.” To be sure, denial of service through malicious input is also a serious issue. Thus, to help the community members for whom the release candidate was insufficient, we are releasing the final versions of 3.9.2 and 3.8.8 today. What’s new? The Python 3.9 series contains many new features and optimizations over 3.8. See the “What’s New in Python 3.9 2 <https://docs.python.org/3.9/whatsnew/3.9.html>” document for more information about features included in the 3.9 series. We also have a detailed change log for 3.9.2rc1 <https://docs.python.org/release/3.9.2/whatsnew/changelog.html#python-3-9-2-…> specifically. The final release only contains a single bugfix <https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/24554> over the release candidate. Detailed information about all changes made in version 3.8.8rc1 specifically can be found in its respective changelog <https://docs.python.org/release/3.8.8/whatsnew/changelog.html#python-3-8-8-…>. The final version contains no changes over the release candidate. We hope you enjoy those new releases! Thanks to all of the many volunteers who help make Python Development and these releases possible! Please consider supporting our efforts by volunteering yourself or through organization contributions to the Python Software Foundation. Your friendly release team, Ned Deily @nad <https://discuss.python.org/u/nad> Steve Dower @steve.dower <https://discuss.python.org/u/steve.dower> Łukasz Langa @ambv <https://discuss.python.org/u/ambv>

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[RELEASE] Python 3.9.2rc1 and 3.8.8rc1 are now available for testing
by Łukasz Langa 17 Feb '21

17 Feb '21

I’m happy to announce two release candidates today: Python 3.9.2rc1, and Python 3.8.8rc1. Get them from: https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-392rc1/ <https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-392rc1/> https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-388rc1/ <https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-388rc1/> Unless critical issues are discovered, both release candidates will become their respective final versions on Monday, March 1st. Following that, the last full regular maintenance release of Python 3.8 is planned for May 3rd 2021, after which it will shift to source releases only for security bug fixes only. Maintenance releases for the 3.9 series will continue at regular bi-monthly intervals, with 3.9.3 planned for early May 2021. Notable security content in today’s releases bpo-42967 <https://bugs.python.org/issue42967>: Fix web cache poisoning vulnerability by defaulting the query args separator to &, and allowing the user to choose a custom separator. bpo-42938 <https://bugs.python.org/issue42938>: Avoid static buffers when computing the repr of ctypes.c_double and ctypes.c_longdouble values. What’s new? The Python 3.9 series contains many new features and optimizations over 3.8. See the “What’s New in Python 3.9 <https://docs.python.org/3.9/whatsnew/3.9.html>” document for more information about features included in the 3.9 series. We also have a detailed change log for 3.9.2rc1 <https://docs.python.org/release/3.9.2rc1/whatsnew/changelog.html#changelog> specifically. Detailed information about all changes made in version 3.8.8rc1 specifically can be found in its change log <https://docs.python.org/release/3.8.8rc1/whatsnew/changelog.html#python-3-8…>. We hope you enjoy those new releases! Thanks to all of the many volunteers who help make Python Development and these releases possible! Please consider supporting our efforts by volunteering yourself or through organization contributions to the Python Software Foundation. Your friendly release team, Ned Deily @nad <https://discuss.python.org/u/nad> Steve Dower @steve.dower <https://discuss.python.org/u/steve.dower> Łukasz Langa @ambv <https://discuss.python.org/u/ambv>

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[RELEASE] Python 3.7.10 and 3.6.13 security updates now available
by Ned Deily 16 Feb '21

16 Feb '21

Python 3.7.10 and 3.6.13, the lastest security fix rollups for Python 3.7 and Python 3.6, are now available. You can find the release files, links to the changelogs, and more information here: https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-3710/ https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-3613/ These releases are source code only; Windows and macOS binary installers are not provided for security fix releases. Note that Python 3.9 is now the latest feature release series of Python 3. You should consider upgrading to 3.9 as soon as practical. Get the latest release of 3.9.x here: https://www.python.org/downloads/ Thanks to all of the many volunteers who help make Python Development and these releases possible! Please consider supporting our efforts by volunteering yourself or through organization contributions to the Python Software Foundation. https://www.python.org/psf-landing/ -- Ned Deily nad(a)python.org -- []

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Submit PEP 624 to SC.
by Inada Naoki 15 Feb '21

15 Feb '21

Hi, all. I think PEP 624 is ready to SC review for now. How can I submit it to the SC? Regards, -- Inada Naoki <songofacandy(a)gmail.com>

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Acceptance of Pattern Matching PEPs 634, 635, 636, Rejection of PEPs 640 and 642
by Python Steering Council 09 Feb '21

09 Feb '21

After much deliberation, the Python Steering Council is happy to announce that we have chosen to accept PEP 634, and its companion PEPs 635 and 636, collectively known as the Pattern Matching PEPs. We acknowledge that Pattern Matching is an extensive change to Python and that reaching consensus across the entire community is close to impossible. Different people have reservations or concerns around different aspects of the semantics and the syntax (as does the Steering Council). In spite of this, after much deliberation, reviewing all conversations around these PEPs, as well as competing proposals and existing poll results, and after several in-person discussions with the PEP authors, we are confident that Pattern Matching as specified in PEP 634, et al, will be a great addition to the Python language. We also recognize that such a large new feature needs to be accompanied by comprehensive documentation and specification, both in the tutorial section of the documentation and in the language reference. We consider that the presence of such high-quality documentation must be present on the first release of Python 3.10, and therefore its absence should be considered a release blocker. We do not consider the PEPs or any possible external documentation to be sufficient. At the same time, we’re rejecting PEPs 640 and 642. Both PEPs have received little support from core developers. PEP 642’s proposed syntax does not seem like the right way to solve the jagged edges in PEP 634’s syntax, although the SC understands the desire to improve those aspects of the Pattern Matching proposal. Regarding that, we would also like to mention that changes building on top of PEP 634 (even PEPs 640 and 642 if they now gain support) can still be submitted via the PEP process for review using the regular channels (discussions in python-dev or the https://discuss.python.org/ server), followed by a formal submission to the Steering Council for consideration, taking into account that backwards-incompatible changes can only be made before the feature freeze point of Python 3.10. See PEP 619 (https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0619/) for details on the release schedule for Python 3.10. We know that Pattern Matching has been a challenging feature that has sparked considerable discussions and design conversations, leading to several revisions from feedback stemming from the community, core devs, and the Steering Council. We are very happy to see that the Python developer community remains passionate and respectful, and we are sure that the result has benefited a lot because of it. Congratulations to the PEP(s) authors: Guido, Brandt, Tobias, Daniel, Talin, and everyone that participated in the discussion and implementation of this important new feature! -The Python Steering Council

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Pattern Matching
by Ethan Furman 05 Feb '21

05 Feb '21

Greetings, all! I was wondering if there was any movement on PEPs 634-636? As Guido mentioned on another PEP, time is running out to get this into 3.10. -- ~Ethan~

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Python 3.10.0a5 is now available
by Pablo Galindo Salgado 03 Feb '21

03 Feb '21

Well, this one took a bit more time due to some surprise last time reference leaks and release blockers to fix, but now Python 3.10.0a5 it’s here. Will this be the first release announcement of the 3.10 series without copy-paste typos? Go get it here: https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-3100a5/ *Major new features of the 3.10 series, compared to 3.9* Python 3.10 is still in development. This release, 3.10.0a5 is the fifth of seven planned alpha releases. Alpha releases are intended to make it easier to test the current state of new features and bug fixes and to test the release process. During the alpha phase, features may be added up until the start of the beta phase (2021-05-03) and, if necessary, may be modified or deleted up until the release candidate phase (2021-10-04). Please keep in mind that this is a preview release and its use is not recommended for production environments. Many new features for Python 3.10 are still being planned and written. Among the new major new features and changes so far: - PEP 623 <https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0623/> – Remove wstr from Unicode - PEP 604 <https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0604/> – Allow writing union types as X | Y - PEP 612 <https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0612/> – Parameter Specification Variables - PEP 626 <https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0626/> – Precise line numbers for debugging and other tools. - bpo-38605 <https://bugs.python.org/issue38605>: from __future__ import annotations (PEP 563 <https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0563/>) is now the default. - PEP 618 <https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0618/>– Add Optional Length-Checking To zip. - bpo-12782 <https://bugs.python.org/issue12782>: Parenthesized context managers are now officially allowed. - (Hey, fellow core developer, if a feature you find important is missing from this list, let Pablo know <pablogsal(a)python.org>.) The next pre-release of Python 3.10 will be 3.10.0a6, currently scheduled for 2021-03-01. And now for something completely different The Chandrasekhar limit is the maximum mass of a stable white dwarf star. White dwarfs resist gravitational collapse primarily through electron degeneracy pressure, compared to main sequence stars, which resist collapse through thermal pressure. The Chandrasekhar limit is the mass above which electron degeneracy pressure in the star’s core is insufficient to balance the star’s own gravitational self-attraction. Consequently, a white dwarf with a mass greater than the limit is subject to further gravitational collapse, evolving into a different type of stellar remnant, such as a neutron star or black hole. Those with masses up to the limit remain stable as white dwarfs. The currently accepted value of the Chandrasekhar limit is about 1.4 M☉ (2.765×1030 kg). So we can be safe knowing that our sun is not going to become a black hole! Regards from cloudy London, Pablo Galindo Salgado

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[ Release ] Python 3.10a5 and release blockers
by Pablo Galindo Salgado 01 Feb '21

01 Feb '21

Hi everyone, I am prepared to start the release process for Python 3.10 a5 but there are several issues marked as release blockers that affect 3.10: * https://bugs.python.org/issue38302 * https://bugs.python.org/issue42634 * https://bugs.python.org/issue41490 * https://bugs.python.org/issue42967 * https://bugs.python.org/issue42899 Although release blockers mainly apply to important releases, there are two are security issues and some of the rest involve changes in bytecode or the tracing machinery, so I would prefer if these issues are addressed before making a new release as many maintainers are waiting for the next alpha to test again the bugs that they reported. Please, if you are involved in any of these issues try to see if is possible to address them or if you think is ok to release the alpha without a fix, please, drop me an email stating so. Thanks, Regards from cloudy London, Pablo Galindo Salgado

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