I heard at PyCon that Guido was thinking of making 2.5 the last release for the 2.x line since he now had the time he needed to move forward with designing Python 3. This eWeek article now confirms what I heard.
A Python 3 release in two or three years will almost definitely kill any 2.6 release since development work will go into rewriting the underilning C code for many of Python's core (I know I plan to play with the exceptions C code to make it nice and clean). And I know of several parts of the core (such as the import code) that are due for a full rewrite to untangle the coe and the semantics.
But I have to admit I am hoping that we do a 2.6 release. What I would love to do is have a 2.x release with the deprecated cruft removed and the docs in a nice, pristine condition so that the 2.x line has a solid release that people can use while 3 is worked on. No one is diluding themselves that Python 3 will not break code and that not everyone will move over to it immediately. Thus I think we need to give something solid for people to use while they make a transition to Python 3 with their codebase. It also gives us a release to fully play with the new stuff in 2.5 to work the kinks out.Read more at www.eweek.com/article2/...