Source: http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.5/

We are pleased to announce the release of Python 2.5 (alpha 1), the first alpha release of Python 2.5, on April 5th, 2006.

Python 2.5 is the newest major release of Python. There's a bunch of places you can look for more information on what's new in this release, see the "What's New" section further down this page.

This is an alpha release. It is absolutely not suitable for production use. It is being released to solicit feedback and hopefully discover bugs, as well as allowing you to determine how changes in 2.5 might impact you.

In particular, note that changes to improve Python's support of 64 bit systems mean that some C extension modules may very well break. This post has some pointers to more information for C extension authors.

Most major new features have already been added. PEP 356 is the document that lists the work remaining for Python 2.5.

The plan from here is for a number of additional alpha releases, followed by one or more beta releases and moving to a 2.5 final release around August. PEP 356 includes the schedule and will be updated as the schedule evolves.

Please see the separate bugs page for known issues and the bug reporting procedure.