RELEASED Python 2.3.6, release candidate 1

On behalf of the Python development team and the Python
community, I'm announcing the release of Python 2.3.6
(release candidate 1).

Python 2.3.6 is a security bug-fix release. While Python 2.5
is the latest version of Python, we're making this release for
people who are still running Python 2.3. Unlike the recently
released 2.4.4, this release only contains a small handful of
security-related bugfixes. See the website for more.

*  Python 2.3.6 contains a fix for PSF-2006-001, a buffer overrun
*  in repr() of unicode strings in wide unicode (UCS-4) builds.
*  See http://www.python.org/news/security/PSF-2006-001/ for more.

This is a **source only** release. The Windows and Mac binaries
of 2.3.5 were built with UCS-2 unicode, and are therefore not
vulnerable to the problem outlined in PSF-2006-001. The PCRE fix
is for a long-deprecated module (you should use the 're' module
instead) and the email fix can be obtained by downloading the
standalone version of the email package.

Most vendors who ship Python should have already released a
patched version of 2.3.5 with the above fixes, this release is
for people who need or want to build their own release, but don't
want to mess around with patch or svn.

Assuming no major problems crop up, a final release of Python
2.3.6 will follow in about a week's time.

Python 2.3.6 will complete python.org's response to PSF-2006-001.