20250205

Upgrades

• CPython: 3.12.8 -> 3.12.9
• CPython: 3.13.1 -> 3.13.2

Distribution changes

• pkg-config files are now relocatable instead of hard-coding our build-time path (#507, see also astral-sh/uv#11028)
• Ensure build attestations are present for all artifacts on main (derived release artifacts, like install-only tarballs, do not have attestations yet) (#501)

Build system changes

• Build scripts work if the Python you're using is itself from python-build-standalone (#505)

Full Changelog: 2025011...2025020

20250115

Upgrades

• libedit 20210910-3.1 -> 20240808-3.1
• CPython 3.14a3 -> 3.14a4
• tcl/tk 8.6.12 -> 8.6.14 (for all Python versions on Unix, only for Python 3.14 on Windows)

Distribution changes

• Add build attestations to artifacts on main
• Add Python 3.14 support on Windows
• Add riscv64-linux support

Build system changes

• Generate CI runners for build matrix dynamically
• Upgrade Python build environment requirements
• Call ulimit -n to avoid overheads in Docker image builds
• Retry on transient failures during artifact upload
• Implement matrix sharding in CI
• Retry downloads when <75% of the file is downloaded

Thanks @Xeonacid, @samypr100, @orf, and @kilian-hu for the contributions.

Full Changelog: 2025010...2025011

20250106

Distribution changes

• Support for Python 3.14.0a3 on macOS and GNU Linux (not yet available on Windows and musl Linux)
• Enable loading hot code into 2MB pages (hugify) with BOLT optimizations
• Use the cdsplit function splitting strategy for BOLT optimizations
• Enable PGO on x86-64-v4 GNU Linux (the lto variant is replaced by pgo+lto)

Upgrades

• autoconf 2.71 -> 2.72
• LLVM 18 -> 19.1.6
• zlib 1.2.13 -> 1.3.1

Fixes

• Add missing parser files to Python 3.13+ Linux and macOS
• Fix detection of SQLite features for the sqlite3 module, e.g., Connection.serialize
• Configure pkg-config during CPython builds: improves detection of various minor features
• Add missing -update-debug-section flag to BOLT instrumentation
• Skip test_embed test cases that segfault when BOLT is enabled
• Remove use of deprecated hfsort+ strategy in BOLT

Build system changes

• Skip building pythonbuild when not needed
• Separate patches for cross-compiling on older Python versions
• Use Python 3.12 to run builds on Windows
• Show Docker build errors when available
• Bump Docker timeout from 60s to 10m

Full Changelog: 2024121...2025010

20241219

Distribution changes

• Strip versioned Xcode path from build flags (#414)
• Sort keys in sysconfig data (#415)
• Patch _tkinter.c to look in base prefix (#421)
• Remove -Werror=unguarded-availability-new from sysconfig data (#422)
• Convert to UTF-8 prior to setting Tkinter path (#425)
• Pass -utf8 to vswhere (#429)
• Remove pgo-only builds on macOS and Linux; pgo+lto builds are available (#444)

Build system changes

• Remove mips / mipsel targets from CI; these were not published (#413)
• Scope libatomic allowance to MIPS on Python 3.13 (#411)
• Build system refactor to prepare for parallel Python version building (#419)
• Ignore clean-up errors for Windows temporary directory (#427)
• Require mimalloc explicitly on all GNU Python 3.13 builds (#391)
• Generate CI matrix at dynamically (#428)

Full Changelog: 2024120...2024121

20241206

This release includes a fix for 20241205, please see that release for other changes.

Fixes

• Create a copy of python3.13t.exe at python.exe and pythonw3.13t.exe at pythonw.exe for free-threaded Windows distributions: 20241205 attempted to remove the 3.13t suffixed executables, but it caused a regression with the virtual environment launcher. A later release may consolidate these executables under unsuffixed name for consistency. In the meantime, a copy is a simple, compatible solution.

20241205

This release includes a regression for free-threaded Python 3.13 on Windows. No other distribution versions are affected. The regression is resolved in 20241206 See #405 for details.

Breaking

• Drop support for Python 3.8: The 20241008 release was the last release with Python 3.8 distributions. Support has now been removed from the build process.
• Rename python3.13t.exe to python.exe in Windows free-threaded distributions: This matches the other Windows distributions. See astral-sh/uv#8298 for discussion.

Upgrades

• CPython 3.9.20 -> 3.9.21
• CPython 3.10.15 -> 3.10.16
• CPython 3.11.10 -> 3.11.11
• CPython 3.12.7 -> 3.12.8
• CPython 3.13.0 -> 3.13.1
• binutils 2.42 -> 2.43
• jom-windows-bin 1.1.3 -> 1.1.4
• mpdecimal 2.5.1 -> 4.0.0
• pip 24.1.2 -> 24.3.1
• setuptools 70.3.0 -> 75.6.0
• SQLite 3.46.0 -> 3.47.1
• strawberryperl 5.28.1.1 -> 5.38.2.2
• x11-util-macros 1.20.0 -> 1.20.1

Fixes

• Use relocatable shebang with space-in-path robustness
• Enable support for dbstat virtual tables in SQLite via SQLITE_ENABLE_DBSTAT_VTAB
• Ensure that Hacl_Hash_SHA2 does not appear as a library to link to

Other

• Build with Visual Studio 2022 instead of 2019

Full Changelog: 2024101...2024120

20241016

Upgrades

• OpenSSL 3.0.14 -> 3.0.15
• expat 2.5.0 -> 2.6.3

Fixes

• Fix freethreaded builds on Windows: The previous release published Windows distributions with the freethreaded tag but the GIL was not disabled. Now, the freethreaded Windows distributions are correct.

Full Changelog: 2024100...2024101

20241008

Upgrades

• CPython 3.13.0rc3 -> CPython 3.13.0 (final)

Changes

• New builds of CPython 3.13 with the experimental freethreading feature are published. Distributions with the following new build options are available:

  • freethreaded+debug
  • freethreaded+pgo+lto
  • freethreaded+pgo
  • freethreaded+lto
  • freethreaded+noopt

  Note that not all build options are available for every platform. Notably excluded are freethreaded builds for musl Linux distributions, which need further development. The freethreaded tag will be present in the new build_options field of the PYTHON.json metadata.

• The CPython 3.8 builds are no longer published. Following the release of CPython 3.13, CPython 3.8 is officially EOL and no more versions will be released upstream.

20241002

Upgrades

• CPython 3.12.6 -> 3.12.7
• CPython 3.13.0rc2 -> 3.13.0rc3

Other

• The PYTHON.json metadata version has been bumped from 7 to 8. The new version includes a build_options field which will eventually replace the optimizations field. The build_options field contains tags in the same format as the optimizations field. In this release, the contents are identical to the optimizations field, but in a future release, it will contain additional build options such as a freethreaded tag. The optimizations field is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. In the meantime, it will exclude any new tags added to the build_options field that are not related to performance optimizations.

Full Changelog: 2024090...2024100

20240909

Upgrades

• OpenSSL 0.10.64 -> 0.10.66
• CPython 3.12.5 -> 3.12.6
• CPython 3.11.9 -> 3.11.10
• CPython 3.10.14 -> 3.10.15
• CPython 3.91.19 -> 3.9.20
• CPython 3.8.19 -> 3.8.20

Enhancements

• Added support for Python 3.13 (3.13.0rc2)
• setuptools is no longer bundled for Python 3.12+
• deepfreeze.o is included in distributions

Other

• The LICENSE file was updated to reflect the correct license for the project (MPL 2.0)
• The build system displays a better error when unable to connect to Docker