Mostly rewritten, much shorter README for Py3k.

1 files changed, 87 insertions, 1204 deletions

diff --git a/README b/README
index ffc3efa..03e4a1e 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
-This is Python 3000 -- unversioned (branched off 2.5 in various beta stages)
-=================================================================
+This is Python version 3.0 alpha 1
+==================================
 
 Copyright (c) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 
 Python Software Foundation.
@@ -22,1253 +22,136 @@ See the file "LICENSE" for information on the history of this
 software, terms & conditions for usage, and a DISCLAIMER OF ALL
 WARRANTIES.
 
-This Python distribution contains no GNU General Public Licensed
-(GPLed) code so it may be used in proprietary projects just like prior
-Python distributions.  There are interfaces to some GNU code but these
-are entirely optional.
+This Python distribution contains *no* GNU General Public License
+(GPL) code, so it may be used in proprietary projects.  There are
+interfaces to some GNU code but these are entirely optional.
 
 All trademarks referenced herein are property of their respective
 holders.
 
 
-Python 3000 disclaimer
-----------------------
+About Python 3000
+-----------------
 
-This README hasn't been updated for Python 3000 yet.  If you see
-anything that should clearly be deleted, let me know (guido@python.org)
-or submit a patch to the Python 3000 category in SourceForge.
+Python 3000 (a.k.a. "Py3k", and released as Python 3.0) is a new
+version of the language, which is incompatible with the 2.x line of
+releases.  The language is mostly the same, but many details,
+especially how built-in objects like dictionaries and strings work,
+have changed considerably, and a lot of deprecated features have
+finally been removed.
 
+This is an ongoing project; the cleanup isn't expected to be complete
+until 2008.  In particular there are plans to reorganize the standard
+library namespace.
 
-What's new in this release?
----------------------------
+This README hasn't been fully updated for Python 3000 yet.  If you see
+anything that should clearly be changed, fix it (if you have checkin
+permissions) or submit a patch to the issue tracker (see below).
 
-See the file "Misc/NEWS".
 
+Release Schedule
+----------------
 
-If you don't read instructions
-------------------------------
-
-Congratulations on getting this far. :-)
-
-To start building right away (on UNIX): type "./configure" in the
-current directory and when it finishes, type "make".  This creates an
-executable "./python"; to install in /usr/local, first do "su root"
-and then "make install".
-
-The section `Build instructions' below is still recommended reading.
-
-
-What is Python anyway?
-----------------------
-
-Python is an interpreted, interactive object-oriented programming
-language suitable (amongst other uses) for distributed application
-development, scripting, numeric computing and system testing.  Python
-is often compared to Tcl, Perl, Java, JavaScript, Visual Basic or
-Scheme.  To find out more about what Python can do for you, point your
-browser to http://www.python.org/.
-
-
-How do I learn Python?
-----------------------
-
-The official tutorial is still a good place to start; see
-http://docs.python.org/ for online and downloadable versions, as well
-as a list of other introductions, and reference documentation.
-
-There's a quickly growing set of books on Python.  See
-http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonBooks for a list.
+The release plan is to have a series of alpha releases in 2007, beta
+releases in 2008, and a final release in August 2008.  The alpha
+releases are primarily aimed at developers who want a sneak peek at
+the new langauge, especially those folks who plan to port their code
+to Python 3000.  The hope is that by the time of the final release,
+many 3rd party packages will already be available in a 3.0-compatible
+form.
 
 
 Documentation
 -------------
 
-All documentation is provided online in a variety of formats.  In
-order of importance for new users: Tutorial, Library Reference,
-Language Reference, Extending & Embedding, and the Python/C API.  The
-Library Reference is especially of immense value since much of
-Python's power is described there, including the built-in data types
-and functions!
-
-All documentation is also available online at the Python web site
-(http://docs.python.org/, see below).  It is available online for
-occasional reference, or can be downloaded in many formats for faster
-access.  The documentation is available in HTML, PostScript, PDF, and
-LaTeX formats; the LaTeX version is primarily for documentation
-authors, translators, and people with special formatting requirements.
-
-Unfortunately, new-style classes (new in Python 2.2) have not yet been
-integrated into Python's standard documentation.  A collection of
-pointers to what has been written is at:
-
-    http://www.python.org/doc/newstyle.html
-
-
-Web sites
----------
-
-New Python releases and related technologies are published at
-http://www.python.org/.  Come visit us!
-
-There's also a Python community web site at
-http://starship.python.net/.
-
-
-Newsgroups and Mailing Lists
-----------------------------
-
-Read comp.lang.python, a high-volume discussion newsgroup about
-Python, or comp.lang.python.announce, a low-volume moderated newsgroup
-for Python-related announcements.  These are also accessible as
-mailing lists: see http://www.python.org/community/lists.html for an
-overview of these and many other Python-related mailing lists.
-
-Archives are accessible via the Google Groups Usenet archive; see
-http://groups.google.com/.  The mailing lists are also archived, see
-http://www.python.org/community/lists.html for details.
-
-
-Bug reports
------------
-
-To report or search for bugs, please use the Python Bug
-Tracker at http://sourceforge.net/bugs/?group_id=5470.
-
-
-Patches and contributions
--------------------------
-
-To submit a patch or other contribution, please use the Python Patch
-Manager at http://sourceforge.net/patch/?group_id=5470.  Guidelines
-for patch submission may be found at http://www.python.org/patches/.
-
-If you have a proposal to change Python, it's best to submit a Python
-Enhancement Proposal (PEP) first.  All current PEPs, as well as
-guidelines for submitting a new PEP, are listed at
-http://www.python.org/peps/.
-
-
-Questions
----------
-
-For help, if you can't find it in the manuals or on the web site, it's
-best to post to the comp.lang.python or the Python mailing list (see
-above).  If you specifically don't want to involve the newsgroup or
-mailing list, send questions to help@python.org (a group of volunteers
-who answer questions as they can).  The newsgroup is the most
-efficient way to ask public questions.
-
-
-Build instructions
-==================
-
-Before you can build Python, you must first configure it.
-Fortunately, the configuration and build process has been automated
-for Unix and Linux installations, so all you usually have to do is
-type a few commands and sit back.  There are some platforms where
-things are not quite as smooth; see the platform specific notes below.
-If you want to build for multiple platforms sharing the same source
-tree, see the section on VPATH below.
-
-Start by running the script "./configure", which determines your
-system configuration and creates the Makefile.  (It takes a minute or
-two -- please be patient!)  You may want to pass options to the
-configure script -- see the section below on configuration options and
-variables.  When it's done, you are ready to run make.
-
-To build Python, you normally type "make" in the toplevel directory.
-If you have changed the configuration, the Makefile may have to be
-rebuilt.  In this case you may have to run make again to correctly
-build your desired target.  The interpreter executable is built in the
-top level directory.
-
-Once you have built a Python interpreter, see the subsections below on
-testing and installation.  If you run into trouble, see the next
-section.
-
-Previous versions of Python used a manual configuration process that
-involved editing the file Modules/Setup.  While this file still exists
-and manual configuration is still supported, it is rarely needed any
-more: almost all modules are automatically built as appropriate under
-guidance of the setup.py script, which is run by Make after the
-interpreter has been built.
-
-
-Troubleshooting
----------------
-
-See also the platform specific notes in the next section.
-
-If you run into other trouble, see the FAQ
-(http://www.python.org/doc/faq) for hints on what can go wrong, and
-how to fix it.
-
-If you rerun the configure script with different options, remove all
-object files by running "make clean" before rebuilding.  Believe it or
-not, "make clean" sometimes helps to clean up other inexplicable
-problems as well.  Try it before sending in a bug report!
-
-If the configure script fails or doesn't seem to find things that
-should be there, inspect the config.log file.
-
-If you get a warning for every file about the -Olimit option being no
-longer supported, you can ignore it.  There's no foolproof way to know
-whether this option is needed; all we can do is test whether it is
-accepted without error.  On some systems, e.g. older SGI compilers, it
-is essential for performance (specifically when compiling ceval.c,
-which has more basic blocks than the default limit of 1000).  If the
-warning bothers you, edit the Makefile to remove "-Olimit 1500" from
-the OPT variable.
-
-If you get failures in test_long, or sys.maxint gets set to -1, you
-are probably experiencing compiler bugs, usually related to
-optimization.  This is a common problem with some versions of gcc, and
-some vendor-supplied compilers, which can sometimes be worked around
-by turning off optimization.  Consider switching to stable versions
-(gcc 2.95.2, gcc 3.x, or contact your vendor.)
-
-From Python 2.0 onward, all Python C code is ANSI C.  Compiling using
-old K&R-C-only compilers is no longer possible.  ANSI C compilers are
-available for all modern systems, either in the form of updated
-compilers from the vendor, or one of the free compilers (gcc).
-
-If "make install" fails mysteriously during the "compiling the library"
-step, make sure that you don't have any of the PYTHONPATH or PYTHONHOME
-environment variables set, as they may interfere with the newly built
-executable which is compiling the library.
-
-Unsupported systems
--------------------
-
-A number of features are not supported in Python 2.5 anymore. Some
-support code is still present, but will be removed in Python 2.6. 
-If you still need to use current Python versions on these systems,
-please send a message to python-dev@python.org indicating that you
-volunteer to support this system. For a more detailed discussion 
-regarding no-longer-supported and resupporting platforms, as well
-as a list of platforms that became or will be unsupported, see PEP 11.
-
-More specifically, the following systems are not supported any
-longer:
-- SunOS 4
-- DYNIX
-- dgux
-- Minix
-- NeXT
-- Irix 4 and --with-sgi-dl
-- Linux 1
-- Systems defining __d6_pthread_create (configure.in)
-- Systems defining PY_PTHREAD_D4, PY_PTHREAD_D6,
-  or PY_PTHREAD_D7 in thread_pthread.h
-- Systems using --with-dl-dld
-- Systems using --without-universal-newlines
-- MacOS 9
-
-The following systems are still supported in Python 2.5, but
-support will be dropped in 2.6:
-- Systems using --with-wctype-functions
-- Win9x, WinME
-
-Warning on install in Windows 98 and Windows Me
------------------------------------------------
-
-Following Microsoft's closing of Extended Support for
-Windows 98/ME (July 11, 2006), Python 2.6 will stop
-supporting these platforms. Python development and
-maintainability becomes easier (and more reliable) when
-platform specific code targeting OSes with few users
-and no dedicated expert developers is taken out. The
-vendor also warns that the OS versions listed above
-"can expose customers to security risks" and recommends
-upgrade.
-
-Platform specific notes
------------------------
-
-(Some of these may no longer apply.  If you find you can build Python
-on these platforms without the special directions mentioned here,
-submit a documentation bug report to SourceForge (see Bug Reports
-above) so we can remove them!)
-
-XXX I think this next bit is out of date:
-
-64-bit platforms: The audioop module doesn't work.
-        The setup.py script disables them on 64-bit installations.
-        Don't try to enable them in the Modules/Setup file.  They
-        contain code that is quite wordsize sensitive.  (If you have a
-        fix, let us know!)
-
-Solaris: When using Sun's C compiler with threads, at least on Solaris
-        2.5.1, you need to add the "-mt" compiler option (the simplest
-        way is probably to specify the compiler with this option as
-        the "CC" environment variable when running the configure
-        script).
-
-        When using GCC on Solaris, beware of binutils 2.13 or GCC
-        versions built using it.  This mistakenly enables the
-        -zcombreloc option which creates broken shared libraries on
-        Solaris.  binutils 2.12 works, and the binutils maintainers
-        are aware of the problem.  Binutils 2.13.1 only partially
-        fixed things.  It appears that 2.13.2 solves the problem
-        completely.  This problem is known to occur with Solaris 2.7
-        and 2.8, but may also affect earlier and later versions of the
-        OS.
-
-        When the dynamic loader complains about errors finding shared
-        libraries, such as
-
-        ld.so.1: ./python: fatal: libstdc++.so.5: open failed:
-        No such file or directory
-
-        you need to first make sure that the library is available on
-        your system. Then, you need to instruct the dynamic loader how
-        to find it. You can choose any of the following strategies:
-
-        1. When compiling Python, set LD_RUN_PATH to the directories
-           containing missing libraries.
-        2. When running Python, set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to these directories.
-        3. Use crle(8) to extend the search path of the loader.
-        4. Modify the installed GCC specs file, adding -R options into the
-           *link: section.
-
-        The complex object fails to compile on Solaris 10 with gcc 3.4 (at
-        least up to 3.4.3).  To work around it, define Py_HUGE_VAL as
-        HUGE_VAL(), e.g.:
-
-          make CPPFLAGS='-D"Py_HUGE_VAL=HUGE_VAL()" -I. -I$(srcdir)/Include'
-          ./python setup.py CPPFLAGS='-D"Py_HUGE_VAL=HUGE_VAL()"'
-
-Linux:  A problem with threads and fork() was tracked down to a bug in
-        the pthreads code in glibc version 2.0.5; glibc version 2.0.7
-        solves the problem.  This causes the popen2 test to fail;
-        problem and solution reported by Pablo Bleyer.
-
-Red Hat Linux: Red Hat 9 built Python2.2 in UCS-4 mode and hacked
-        Tcl to support it. To compile Python2.3 with Tkinter, you will
-        need to pass --enable-unicode=ucs4 flag to ./configure.
-
-        There's an executable /usr/bin/python which is Python
-        1.5.2 on most older Red Hat installations; several key Red Hat tools
-        require this version.  Python 2.1.x may be installed as
-        /usr/bin/python2.  The Makefile installs Python as
-        /usr/local/bin/python, which may or may not take precedence
-        over /usr/bin/python, depending on how you have set up $PATH.
-
-FreeBSD 3.x and probably platforms with NCurses that use libmytinfo or
-        similar: When using cursesmodule, the linking is not done in
-        the correct order with the defaults.  Remove "-ltermcap" from
-        the readline entry in Setup, and use as curses entry: "curses
-        cursesmodule.c -lmytinfo -lncurses -ltermcap" - "mytinfo" (so
-        called on FreeBSD) should be the name of the auxiliary library
-        required on your platform.  Normally, it would be linked
-        automatically, but not necessarily in the correct order.
-
-BSDI:   BSDI versions before 4.1 have known problems with threads,
-        which can cause strange errors in a number of modules (for
-        instance, the 'test_signal' test script will hang forever.)
-        Turning off threads (with --with-threads=no) or upgrading to
-        BSDI 4.1 solves this problem.
-
-DEC Unix: Run configure with --with-dec-threads, or with
-        --with-threads=no if no threads are desired (threads are on by
-        default).  When using GCC, it is possible to get an internal
-        compiler error if optimization is used.  This was reported for
-        GCC 2.7.2.3 on selectmodule.c.  Manually compile the affected
-        file without optimization to solve the problem.
-
-DEC Ultrix: compile with GCC to avoid bugs in the native compiler,
-        and pass SHELL=/bin/sh5 to Make when installing.
-
-AIX:    A complete overhaul of the shared library support is now in
-        place.  See Misc/AIX-NOTES for some notes on how it's done.
-        (The optimizer bug reported at this place in previous releases
-        has been worked around by a minimal code change.) If you get
-        errors about pthread_* functions, during compile or during
-        testing, try setting CC to a thread-safe (reentrant) compiler,
-        like "cc_r".  For full C++ module support, set CC="xlC_r" (or
-        CC="xlC" without thread support).
-
-AIX 5.3: To build a 64-bit version with IBM's compiler, I used the
-        following:
-
-        export PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/vacpp/bin
-        ./configure --with-gcc="xlc_r -q64" --with-cxx="xlC_r -q64" \
-                    --disable-ipv6 AR="ar -X64"
-        make
-
-HP-UX:  When using threading, you may have to add -D_REENTRANT to the
-        OPT variable in the top-level Makefile; reported by Pat Knight,
-        this seems to make a difference (at least for HP-UX 10.20)
-        even though pyconfig.h defines it. This seems unnecessary when
-        using HP/UX 11 and later - threading seems to work "out of the
-        box".
-
-HP-UX ia64: When building on the ia64 (Itanium) platform using HP's
-        compiler, some experience has shown that the compiler's
-        optimiser produces a completely broken version of python
-        (see http://www.python.org/sf/814976). To work around this,
-        edit the Makefile and remove -O from the OPT line.
-
-        To build a 64-bit executable on an Itanium 2 system using HP's
-        compiler, use these environment variables:
-
-                CC=cc
-                CXX=aCC
-                BASECFLAGS="+DD64"
-                LDFLAGS="+DD64 -lxnet"
-
-        and call configure as:
-
-                ./configure --without-gcc
-
-        then *unset* the environment variables again before running
-        make.  (At least one of these flags causes the build to fail
-        if it remains set.)  You still have to edit the Makefile and
-        remove -O from the OPT line.
-
-HP PA-RISC 2.0: A recent bug report (http://www.python.org/sf/546117)
-        suggests that the C compiler in this 64-bit system has bugs
-        in the optimizer that break Python.  Compiling without
-        optimization solves the problems.
-
-SCO:    The following apply to SCO 3 only; Python builds out of the box
-        on SCO 5 (or so we've heard).
-
-        1) Everything works much better if you add -U__STDC__ to the
-        defs.  This is because all the SCO header files are broken.
-        Anything that isn't mentioned in the C standard is
-        conditionally excluded when __STDC__ is defined.
-
-        2) Due to the U.S. export restrictions, SCO broke the crypt
-        stuff out into a separate library, libcrypt_i.a so the LIBS
-        needed be set to:
-
-                LIBS=' -lsocket -lcrypt_i'
-
-UnixWare: There are known bugs in the math library of the system, as well as
-        problems in the handling of threads (calling fork in one
-        thread may interrupt system calls in others). Therefore, test_math and
-        tests involving threads will fail until those problems are fixed.
-
-QNX:    Chris Herborth (chrish@qnx.com) writes:
-        configure works best if you use GNU bash; a port is available on
-        ftp.qnx.com in /usr/free.  I used the following process to build,
-        test and install Python 1.5.x under QNX:
-
-        1) CONFIG_SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash CC=cc RANLIB=: \
-            ./configure --verbose --without-gcc --with-libm=""
-
-        2) edit Modules/Setup to activate everything that makes sense for
-           your system... tested here at QNX with the following modules:
-
-                array, audioop, binascii, cPickle, cStringIO, cmath,
-                crypt, curses, errno, fcntl, gdbm, grp,
-                _locale, math, new, operator, parser,
-                posix, pwd, readline, regex,
-                select, signal, socket, struct,
-                syslog, termios, time, zlib, audioop
-
-        3) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash
-
-           or, if you feel the need for speed:
-
-           make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash OPT="-5 -Oil+nrt"
-
-        4) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash test
-
-           Using GNU readline 2.2 seems to behave strangely, but I
-           think that's a problem with my readline 2.2 port.  :-\
-
-        5) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash install
-
-        If you get SIGSEGVs while running Python (I haven't yet, but
-        I've only run small programs and the test cases), you're
-        probably running out of stack; the default 32k could be a
-        little tight.  To increase the stack size, edit the Makefile
-        to read: LDFLAGS = -N 48k
-
-Cray T3E: Mark Hadfield (m.hadfield@niwa.co.nz) writes:
-        Python can be built satisfactorily on a Cray T3E but based on
-        my experience with the NIWA T3E (2002-05-22, version 2.2.1)
-        there are a few bugs and gotchas. For more information see a
-        thread on comp.lang.python in May 2002 entitled "Building
-        Python on Cray T3E".
-
-        1) Use Cray's cc and not gcc. The latter was reported not to
-           work by Konrad Hinsen. It may work now, but it may not.
-
-        2) To set sys.platform to something sensible, pass the
-           following environment variable to the configure script:
-
-             MACHDEP=unicosmk
-
-        2) Run configure with option "--enable-unicode=ucs4".
-
-        3) The Cray T3E does not support dynamic linking, so extension
-           modules have to be built by adding (or uncommenting) lines
-           in Modules/Setup. The minimum set of modules is
-
-             posix, new, _sre, unicodedata
-
-           On NIWA's vanilla T3E system the following have also been
-           included successfully:
-
-	     _codecs, _locale, _socket, _symtable, _testcapi, _weakref
-	     array, binascii, cmath, cPickle, crypt, cStringIO, dbm
-	     errno, fcntl, grp, math, operator, parser, pwd
-	     rotor, select, struct, syslog, termios, time
-
-        4) Once the python executable and library have been built, make
-           will execute setup.py, which will attempt to build remaining
-           extensions and link them dynamically. Each of these attempts
-           will fail but should not halt the make process. This is
-           normal.
-
-        5) Running "make test" uses a lot of resources and causes
-           problems on our system. You might want to try running tests
-           singly or in small groups.
-
-SGI:    SGI's standard "make" utility (/bin/make or /usr/bin/make)
-        does not check whether a command actually changed the file it
-        is supposed to build.  This means that whenever you say "make"
-        it will redo the link step.  The remedy is to use SGI's much
-        smarter "smake" utility (/usr/sbin/smake), or GNU make.  If
-        you set the first line of the Makefile to #!/usr/sbin/smake
-        smake will be invoked by make (likewise for GNU make).
-
-        WARNING: There are bugs in the optimizer of some versions of
-        SGI's compilers that can cause bus errors or other strange
-        behavior, especially on numerical operations.  To avoid this,
-        try building with "make OPT=".
-
-OS/2:   If you are running Warp3 or Warp4 and have IBM's VisualAge C/C++
-        compiler installed, just change into the pc\os2vacpp directory
-        and type NMAKE.  Threading and sockets are supported by default
-        in the resulting binaries of PYTHON15.DLL and PYTHON.EXE.
-
-Monterey (64-bit AIX): The current Monterey C compiler (Visual Age)
-        uses the OBJECT_MODE={32|64} environment variable to set the
-        compilation mode to either 32-bit or 64-bit (32-bit mode is
-        the default).  Presumably you want 64-bit compilation mode for
-        this 64-bit OS.  As a result you must first set OBJECT_MODE=64
-        in your environment before configuring (./configure) or
-        building (make) Python on Monterey.
-
-Reliant UNIX: The thread support does not compile on Reliant UNIX, and
-        there is a (minor) problem in the configure script for that
-        platform as well.  This should be resolved in time for a
-        future release.
-
-MacOSX: The tests will crash on both 10.1 and 10.2 with SEGV in
-        test_re and test_sre due to the small default stack size.  If
-        you set the stack size to 2048 before doing a "make test" the
-        failure can be avoided.  If you're using the tcsh or csh shells,
-        use "limit stacksize 2048" and for the bash shell (the default
-        as of OSX 10.3), use "ulimit -s 2048".
-
-        On naked Darwin you may want to add the configure option
-        "--disable-toolbox-glue" to disable the glue code for the Carbon
-        interface modules. The modules themselves are currently only built
-        if you add the --enable-framework option, see below.
-
-        On a clean OSX /usr/local does not exist. Do a
-        "sudo mkdir -m 775 /usr/local"
-        before you do a make install. It is probably not a good idea to
-        do "sudo make install" which installs everything as superuser,
-        as this may later cause problems when installing distutils-based
-        additions.
-
-        Some people have reported problems building Python after using "fink"
-        to install additional unix software. Disabling fink (remove all 
-        references to /sw from your .profile or .login) should solve this.
-
-        You may want to try the configure option "--enable-framework"
-        which installs Python as a framework. The location can be set
-        as argument to the --enable-framework option (default
-        /Library/Frameworks). A framework install is probably needed if you
-        want to use any Aqua-based GUI toolkit (whether Tkinter, wxPython,
-        Carbon, Cocoa or anything else).
-
-	You may also want to try the configure option "--enable-universalsdk"
-	which builds Python as a universal binary with support for the 
-	i386 and PPC architetures. This requires Xcode 2.1 or later to build.
+Documentation for Python 3000 is online, updated twice a day:
 
-        See Mac/OSX/README for more information on framework and 
-	universal builds.
+    http://docs.python.org/dev/3.0/
 
-Cygwin: With recent (relative to the time of writing, 2001-12-19)
-        Cygwin installations, there are problems with the interaction
-        of dynamic linking and fork().  This manifests itself in build
-        failures during the execution of setup.py.
+This is a work in progress; please help improve it!
 
-        There are two workarounds that both enable Python (albeit
-        without threading support) to build and pass all tests on
-        NT/2000 (and most likely XP as well, though reports of testing
-        on XP would be appreciated).
+The design documents for Python 3000 are also online.  While the
+reference documentation is being updated, the PEPs are often the best
+source of information about new features.  Start by reading PEP 3000:
 
-        The workarounds:
+    http://python.org/dev/peps/pep-3000/
 
-        (a) the band-aid fix is to link the _socket module statically
-        rather than dynamically (which is the default).
 
-        To do this, run "./configure --with-threads=no" including any
-        other options you need (--prefix, etc.).  Then in Modules/Setup
-        uncomment the lines:
-
-        #SSL=/usr/local/ssl
-        #_socket socketmodule.c \
-        #       -DUSE_SSL -I$(SSL)/include -I$(SSL)/include/openssl \
-        #       -L$(SSL)/lib -lssl -lcrypto
-
-        and remove "local/" from the SSL variable.  Finally, just run
-        "make"!
-
-        (b) The "proper" fix is to rebase the Cygwin DLLs to prevent
-        base address conflicts.  Details on how to do this can be
-        found in the following mail:
-
-           http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2001-12/msg00894.html
-
-        It is hoped that a version of this solution will be
-        incorporated into the Cygwin distribution fairly soon.
-
-        Two additional problems:
-
-        (1) Threading support should still be disabled due to a known
-        bug in Cygwin pthreads that causes test_threadedtempfile to
-        hang.
-
-        (2) The _curses module does not build.  This is a known
-        Cygwin ncurses problem that should be resolved the next time
-        that this package is released.
-
-        On older versions of Cygwin, test_poll may hang and test_strftime
-        may fail.
-
-        The situation on 9X/Me is not accurately known at present.
-        Some time ago, there were reports that the following
-        regression tests failed:
-
-            test_pwd
-            test_select (hang)
-            test_socket
-
-        Due to the test_select hang on 9X/Me, one should run the
-        regression test using the following:
-
-            make TESTOPTS='-l -x test_select' test
-
-        News regarding these platforms with more recent Cygwin
-        versions would be appreciated!
-
-AtheOS: Official support has been stopped as of Python 2.6.  All code will be
-        removed in Python 2.7 unless a maintainer steps forward for this
-        platform.
-
-        From Octavian Cerna <tavy at ylabs.com>:
-
-        Before building:
-
-            Make sure you have shared versions of the libraries you
-            want to use with Python. You will have to compile them
-            yourself, or download precompiled packages.
-
-            Recommended libraries:
-
-                ncurses-4.2
-                readline-4.2a
-                zlib-1.1.4
-
-        Build:
-
-            $ ./configure --prefix=/usr/python
-            $ make
-
-            Python is always built as a shared library, otherwise
-            dynamic loading would not work.
-
-        Testing:
-
-            $ make test
-
-        Install:
-
-            # make install
-            # pkgmanager -a /usr/python
-
-
-        AtheOS issues:
-
-            - large file support: due to a stdio bug in glibc/libio,
-              access to large files may not work correctly.  fseeko()
-              tries to seek to a negative offset.  ftello() returns a
-              negative offset, it looks like a 32->64bit
-              sign-extension issue.  The lowlevel functions (open,
-              lseek, etc) are OK.
-            - sockets: AF_UNIX is defined in the C library and in
-              Python, but not implemented in the system.
-            - select: poll is available in the C library, but does not
-              work (It does not return POLLNVAL for bad fds and
-              hangs).
-            - posix: statvfs and fstatvfs always return ENOSYS.
-            - disabled modules:
-                - mmap: not yet implemented in AtheOS
-                - nis: broken (on an unconfigured system
-                  yp_get_default_domain() returns junk instead of
-                  error)
-                - dl: dynamic loading doesn't work via dlopen()
-                - resource: getrimit and setrlimit are not yet
-                  implemented
-
-            - if you are getting segmentation faults, you probably are
-              low on memory.  AtheOS doesn't handle very well an
-              out-of-memory condition and simply SEGVs the process.
-
-        Tested on:
-
-            AtheOS-0.3.7
-            gcc-2.95
-            binutils-2.10
-            make-3.78
-
-
-Configuring the bsddb and dbm modules
--------------------------------------
-
-Beginning with Python version 2.3, the PyBsddb package
-<http://pybsddb.sf.net/> was adopted into Python as the bsddb package,
-exposing a set of package-level functions which provide
-backwards-compatible behavior.  Only versions 3.3 through 4.4 of
-Sleepycat's libraries provide the necessary API, so older versions
-aren't supported through this interface.  The
-dbm module will still be built against the Sleepycat libraries if
-other preferred alternatives (ndbm, gdbm) are not found.
-
-Building the sqlite3 module
----------------------------
-
-To build the sqlite3 module, you'll need the sqlite3 or libsqlite3
-packages installed, including the header files. Many modern operating
-systems distribute the headers in a separate package to the library -
-often it will be the same name as the main package, but with a -dev or
--devel suffix. 
-
-The version of pysqlite2 that's including in Python needs sqlite3 3.0.8
-or later. setup.py attempts to check that it can find a correct version.
-
-Configuring threads
--------------------
-
-As of Python 2.0, threads are enabled by default.  If you wish to
-compile without threads, or if your thread support is broken, pass the
---with-threads=no switch to configure.  Unfortunately, on some
-platforms, additional compiler and/or linker options are required for
-threads to work properly.  Below is a table of those options,
-collected by Bill Janssen.  We would love to automate this process
-more, but the information below is not enough to write a patch for the
-configure.in file, so manual intervention is required.  If you patch
-the configure.in file and are confident that the patch works, please
-send in the patch.  (Don't bother patching the configure script itself
--- it is regenerated each time the configure.in file changes.)
-
-Compiler switches for threads
-.............................
-
-The definition of _REENTRANT should be configured automatically, if
-that does not work on your system, or if _REENTRANT is defined
-incorrectly, please report that as a bug.
-
-    OS/Compiler/threads                     Switches for use with threads
-    (POSIX is draft 10, DCE is draft 4)     compile & link
-
-    SunOS 5.{1-5}/{gcc,SunPro cc}/solaris   -mt
-    SunOS 5.5/{gcc,SunPro cc}/POSIX         (nothing)
-    DEC OSF/1 3.x/cc/DCE                    -threads
-            (butenhof@zko.dec.com)
-    Digital UNIX 4.x/cc/DCE                 -threads
-            (butenhof@zko.dec.com)
-    Digital UNIX 4.x/cc/POSIX               -pthread
-            (butenhof@zko.dec.com)
-    AIX 4.1.4/cc_r/d7                       (nothing)
-            (buhrt@iquest.net)
-    AIX 4.1.4/cc_r4/DCE                     (nothing)
-            (buhrt@iquest.net)
-    IRIX 6.2/cc/POSIX                       (nothing)
-            (robertl@cwi.nl)
-
-
-Linker (ld) libraries and flags for threads
-...........................................
-
-    OS/threads                          Libraries/switches for use with threads
-
-    SunOS 5.{1-5}/solaris               -lthread
-    SunOS 5.5/POSIX                     -lpthread
-    DEC OSF/1 3.x/DCE                   -lpthreads -lmach -lc_r -lc
-            (butenhof@zko.dec.com)
-    Digital UNIX 4.x/DCE                -lpthreads -lpthread -lmach -lexc -lc
-            (butenhof@zko.dec.com)
-    Digital UNIX 4.x/POSIX              -lpthread -lmach -lexc -lc
-            (butenhof@zko.dec.com)
-    AIX 4.1.4/{draft7,DCE}              (nothing)
-            (buhrt@iquest.net)
-    IRIX 6.2/POSIX                      -lpthread
-            (jph@emilia.engr.sgi.com)
-
-
-Building a shared libpython
----------------------------
-
-Starting with Python 2.3, the majority of the interpreter can be built
-into a shared library, which can then be used by the interpreter
-executable, and by applications embedding Python. To enable this feature,
-configure with --enable-shared.
-
-If you enable this feature, the same object files will be used to create
-a static library.  In particular, the static library will contain object
-files using position-independent code (PIC) on platforms where PIC flags
-are needed for the shared library.
-
-
-Configuring additional built-in modules
----------------------------------------
-
-Starting with Python 2.1, the setup.py script at the top of the source
-distribution attempts to detect which modules can be built and
-automatically compiles them.  Autodetection doesn't always work, so
-you can still customize the configuration by editing the Modules/Setup
-file; but this should be considered a last resort.  The rest of this
-section only applies if you decide to edit the Modules/Setup file.
-You also need this to enable static linking of certain modules (which
-is needed to enable profiling on some systems).
-
-This file is initially copied from Setup.dist by the configure script;
-if it does not exist yet, create it by copying Modules/Setup.dist
-yourself (configure will never overwrite it).  Never edit Setup.dist
--- always edit Setup or Setup.local (see below).  Read the comments in
-the file for information on what kind of edits are allowed.  When you
-have edited Setup in the Modules directory, the interpreter will
-automatically be rebuilt the next time you run make (in the toplevel
-directory).
-
-Many useful modules can be built on any Unix system, but some optional
-modules can't be reliably autodetected.  Often the quickest way to
-determine whether a particular module works or not is to see if it
-will build: enable it in Setup, then if you get compilation or link
-errors, disable it -- you're either missing support or need to adjust
-the compilation and linking parameters for that module.
-
-In addition to the file Setup, you can also edit the file Setup.local.
-(the makesetup script processes both).  You may find it more
-convenient to edit Setup.local and leave Setup alone.  Then, when
-installing a new Python version, you can copy your old Setup.local
-file.
-
-
-Setting the optimization/debugging options
-------------------------------------------
-
-If you want or need to change the optimization/debugging options for
-the C compiler, assign to the OPT variable on the toplevel make
-command; e.g. "make OPT=-g" will build a debugging version of Python
-on most platforms.  The default is OPT=-O; a value for OPT in the
-environment when the configure script is run overrides this default
-(likewise for CC; and the initial value for LIBS is used as the base
-set of libraries to link with).
-
-When compiling with GCC, the default value of OPT will also include
-the -Wall and -Wstrict-prototypes options.
-
-Additional debugging code to help debug memory management problems can
-be enabled by using the --with-pydebug option to the configure script.
-
-For flags that change binary compatibility, use the EXTRA_CFLAGS
-variable.
-
-
-Profiling
----------
-
-If you want C profiling turned on, the easiest way is to run configure
-with the CC environment variable to the necessary compiler
-invocation.  For example, on Linux, this works for profiling using
-gprof(1):
-
-    CC="gcc -pg" ./configure
-
-Note that on Linux, gprof apparently does not work for shared
-libraries.  The Makefile/Setup mechanism can be used to compile and
-link most extension modules statically.
-
-
-Testing
--------
-
-To test the interpreter, type "make test" in the top-level directory.
-This runs the test set twice (once with no compiled files, once with
-the compiled files left by the previous test run).  The test set
-produces some output.  You can generally ignore the messages about
-skipped tests due to optional features which can't be imported.
-If a message is printed about a failed test or a traceback or core
-dump is produced, something is wrong.  On some Linux systems (those
-that are not yet using glibc 6), test_strftime fails due to a
-non-standard implementation of strftime() in the C library. Please
-ignore this, or upgrade to glibc version 6.
-
-IMPORTANT: If the tests fail and you decide to mail a bug report,
-*don't* include the output of "make test".  It is useless.  Run the
-failing test manually, as follows:
-
-        ./python ./Lib/test/test_whatever.py
-
-(substituting the top of the source tree for '.' if you built in a
-different directory).  This runs the test in verbose mode.
-
-
-Installing
+What's New
 ----------
 
-To install the Python binary, library modules, shared library modules
-(see below), include files, configuration files, and the manual page,
-just type
-
-        make install
-
-This will install all platform-independent files in subdirectories of
-the directory given with the --prefix option to configure or to the
-`prefix' Make variable (default /usr/local).  All binary and other
-platform-specific files will be installed in subdirectories if the
-directory given by --exec-prefix or the `exec_prefix' Make variable
-(defaults to the --prefix directory) is given.
-
-If DESTDIR is set, it will be taken as the root directory of the
-installation, and files will be installed into $(DESTDIR)$(prefix),
-$(DESTDIR)$(exec_prefix), etc.
-
-All subdirectories created will have Python's version number in their
-name, e.g. the library modules are installed in
-"/usr/local/lib/python<version>/" by default, where <version> is the
-<major>.<minor> release number (e.g. "2.1").  The Python binary is
-installed as "python<version>" and a hard link named "python" is
-created.  The only file not installed with a version number in its
-name is the manual page, installed as "/usr/local/man/man1/python.1"
-by default.
-
-If you have a previous installation of Python that you don't
-want to replace yet, use
-
-        make altinstall
-
-This installs the same set of files as "make install" except it
-doesn't create the hard link to "python<version>" named "python" and
-it doesn't install the manual page at all.
-
-The only thing you may have to install manually is the Python mode for
-Emacs found in Misc/python-mode.el.  (But then again, more recent
-versions of Emacs may already have it.)  Follow the instructions that
-came with Emacs for installation of site-specific files.
-
-On Mac OS X, if you have configured Python with --enable-framework, you
-should use "make frameworkinstall" to do the installation. Note that this
-installs the Python executable in a place that is not normally on your
-PATH, you may want to set up a symlink in /usr/local/bin.
-
-
-Configuration options and variables
------------------------------------
-
-Some special cases are handled by passing options to the configure
-script.
-
-WARNING: if you rerun the configure script with different options, you
-must run "make clean" before rebuilding.  Exceptions to this rule:
-after changing --prefix or --exec-prefix, all you need to do is remove
-Modules/getpath.o.
-
---with(out)-gcc: The configure script uses gcc (the GNU C compiler) if
-        it finds it.  If you don't want this, or if this compiler is
-        installed but broken on your platform, pass the option
-        --without-gcc.  You can also pass "CC=cc" (or whatever the
-        name of the proper C compiler is) in the environment, but the
-        advantage of using --without-gcc is that this option is
-        remembered by the config.status script for its --recheck
-        option.
+For an overview of what's new in Python 3000, see Guido van Rossum's
+blog at artima.com:
 
---prefix, --exec-prefix: If you want to install the binaries and the
-        Python library somewhere else than in /usr/local/{bin,lib},
-        you can pass the option --prefix=DIRECTORY; the interpreter
-        binary will be installed as DIRECTORY/bin/python and the
-        library files as DIRECTORY/lib/python/*.  If you pass
-        --exec-prefix=DIRECTORY (as well) this overrides the
-        installation prefix for architecture-dependent files (like the
-        interpreter binary).  Note that --prefix=DIRECTORY also
-        affects the default module search path (sys.path), when
-        Modules/config.c is compiled.  Passing make the option
-        prefix=DIRECTORY (and/or exec_prefix=DIRECTORY) overrides the
-        prefix set at configuration time; this may be more convenient
-        than re-running the configure script if you change your mind
-        about the install prefix.
+    http://www.artima.com/weblogs/index.jsp?blogger=guido
 
---with-readline: This option is no longer supported.  GNU
-        readline is automatically enabled by setup.py when present.
+We'll eventually have a comprehensive overview of the changes in a
+"What's New in Python 3.0" document.  Please help write it!
 
---with-threads: On most Unix systems, you can now use multiple
-        threads, and support for this is enabled by default.  To
-        disable this, pass --with-threads=no.  If the library required
-        for threads lives in a peculiar place, you can use
-        --with-thread=DIRECTORY.  IMPORTANT: run "make clean" after
-        changing (either enabling or disabling) this option, or you
-        will get link errors!  Note: for DEC Unix use
-        --with-dec-threads instead.
 
---with-sgi-dl: On SGI IRIX 4, dynamic loading of extension modules is
-        supported by the "dl" library by Jack Jansen, which is
-        ftp'able from ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/dynload/dl-1.6.tar.Z.
-        This is enabled (after you've ftp'ed and compiled the dl
-        library) by passing --with-sgi-dl=DIRECTORY where DIRECTORY
-        is the absolute pathname of the dl library.  (Don't bother on
-        IRIX 5, it already has dynamic linking using SunOS style
-        shared libraries.)  THIS OPTION IS UNSUPPORTED.
+Converting From Python 2.x to 3.0
+---------------------------------
 
---with-dl-dld: Dynamic loading of modules is rumored to be supported
-        on some other systems: VAX (Ultrix), Sun3 (SunOS 3.4), Sequent
-        Symmetry (Dynix), and Atari ST.  This is done using a
-        combination of the GNU dynamic loading package
-        (ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/dynload/dl-dld-1.1.tar.Z) and an
-        emulation of the SGI dl library mentioned above (the emulation
-        can be found at
-        ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/dynload/dld-3.2.3.tar.Z).  To
-        enable this, ftp and compile both libraries, then call
-        configure, passing it the option
-        --with-dl-dld=DL_DIRECTORY,DLD_DIRECTORY where DL_DIRECTORY is
-        the absolute pathname of the dl emulation library and
-        DLD_DIRECTORY is the absolute pathname of the GNU dld library.
-        (Don't bother on SunOS 4 or 5, they already have dynamic
-        linking using shared libraries.)  THIS OPTION IS UNSUPPORTED.
+Python 2.6 (not yet released) will contain features to help locating
+code that needs to be changed, such as optional warnings when
+deprecated features are used, and backported versions of certain key
+Python 3000 features.
 
---with-libm, --with-libc: It is possible to specify alternative
-        versions for the Math library (default -lm) and the C library
-        (default the empty string) using the options
-        --with-libm=STRING and --with-libc=STRING, respectively.  For
-        example, if your system requires that you pass -lc_s to the C
-        compiler to use the shared C library, you can pass
-        --with-libc=-lc_s. These libraries are passed after all other
-        libraries, the C library last.
+A source-to-source translation tool, "2to3", can take care of the
+mundane task of converting large amounts of source code.  It is not a
+complete solution but is complemented by the deprecation warnings in
+2.6.  This tool is currently available via the Subversion sandbox:
 
---with-libs='libs': Add 'libs' to the LIBS that the python interpreter
-        is linked against.
+    http://svn.python.org/view/sandbox/trunk/2to3/
 
---with-cxx-main=<compiler>: If you plan to use C++ extension modules,
-        then -- on some platforms -- you need to compile python's main()
-        function with the C++ compiler. With this option, make will use
-        <compiler> to compile main() *and* to link the python executable.
-        It is likely that the resulting executable depends on the C++
-        runtime library of <compiler>. (The default is --without-cxx-main.)
-
-        There are platforms that do not require you to build Python
-        with a C++ compiler in order to use C++ extension modules.
-        E.g., x86 Linux with ELF shared binaries and GCC 3.x, 4.x is such
-        a platform. We recommend that you configure Python
-        --without-cxx-main on those platforms because a mismatch
-        between the C++ compiler version used to build Python and to
-        build a C++ extension module is likely to cause a crash at
-        runtime.
-
-        The Python installation also stores the variable CXX that
-        determines, e.g., the C++ compiler distutils calls by default
-        to build C++ extensions. If you set CXX on the configure command
-        line to any string of non-zero length, then configure won't
-        change CXX. If you do not preset CXX but pass
-        --with-cxx-main=<compiler>, then configure sets CXX=<compiler>.
-        In all other cases, configure looks for a C++ compiler by
-        some common names (c++, g++, gcc, CC, cxx, cc++, cl) and sets
-        CXX to the first compiler it finds. If it does not find any
-        C++ compiler, then it sets CXX="".
-
-        Similarly, if you want to change the command used to link the
-        python executable, then set LINKCC on the configure command line.
-
-
---with-pydebug:  Enable additional debugging code to help track down
-        memory management problems.  This allows printing a list of all
-        live objects when the interpreter terminates.
-
---with(out)-universal-newlines: enable reading of text files with
-        foreign newline convention (default: enabled). In other words,
-        any of \r, \n or \r\n is acceptable as end-of-line character.
-        If enabled import will automatically accept any newline
-        in files. Python code can open a file with open(file, 'U') to
-        read it in universal newline mode. THIS OPTION IS UNSUPPORTED.
-
---with-tsc: Profile using the Pentium timestamping counter (TSC).
-
---with-system-ffi:  Build the _ctypes extension module using an ffi
-	library installed on the system.
-
-
-Building for multiple architectures (using the VPATH feature)
--------------------------------------------------------------
-
-If your file system is shared between multiple architectures, it
-usually is not necessary to make copies of the sources for each
-architecture you want to support.  If the make program supports the
-VPATH feature, you can create an empty build directory for each
-architecture, and in each directory run the configure script (on the
-appropriate machine with the appropriate options).  This creates the
-necessary subdirectories and the Makefiles therein.  The Makefiles
-contain a line VPATH=... which points to a directory containing the
-actual sources.  (On SGI systems, use "smake -J1" instead of "make" if
-you use VPATH -- don't try gnumake.)
-
-For example, the following is all you need to build a minimal Python
-in /usr/tmp/python (assuming ~guido/src/python is the toplevel
-directory and you want to build in /usr/tmp/python):
-
-        $ mkdir /usr/tmp/python
-        $ cd /usr/tmp/python
-        $ ~guido/src/python/configure
-        [...]
-        $ make
-        [...]
-        $
-
-Note that configure copies the original Setup file to the build
-directory if it finds no Setup file there.  This means that you can
-edit the Setup file for each architecture independently.  For this
-reason, subsequent changes to the original Setup file are not tracked
-automatically, as they might overwrite local changes.  To force a copy
-of a changed original Setup file, delete the target Setup file.  (The
-makesetup script supports multiple input files, so if you want to be
-fancy you can change the rules to create an empty Setup.local if it
-doesn't exist and run it with arguments $(srcdir)/Setup Setup.local;
-however this assumes that you only need to add modules.)
-
-
-Building on non-UNIX systems
-----------------------------
-
-For Windows (2000/NT/ME/98/95), assuming you have MS VC++ 7.1, the
-project files are in PCbuild, the workspace is pcbuild.dsw.  See
-PCbuild\readme.txt for detailed instructions.
-
-For other non-Unix Windows compilers, in particular MS VC++ 6.0 and
-for OS/2, enter the directory "PC" and read the file "readme.txt".
-
-For the Mac, a separate source distribution will be made available,
-for use with the CodeWarrior compiler.  If you are interested in Mac
-development, join the PythonMac Special Interest Group
-(http://www.python.org/sigs/pythonmac-sig/, or send email to
-pythonmac-sig-request@python.org).
-
-Of course, there are also binary distributions available for these
-platforms -- see http://www.python.org/.
-
-To port Python to a new non-UNIX system, you will have to fake the
-effect of running the configure script manually (for Mac and PC, this
-has already been done for you).  A good start is to copy the file
-pyconfig.h.in to pyconfig.h and edit the latter to reflect the actual
-configuration of your system.  Most symbols must simply be defined as
-1 only if the corresponding feature is present and can be left alone
-otherwise; however the *_t type symbols must be defined as some
-variant of int if they need to be defined at all.
-
-For all platforms, it's important that the build arrange to define the
-preprocessor symbol NDEBUG on the compiler command line in a release
-build of Python (else assert() calls remain in the code, hurting
-release-build performance).  The Unix, Windows and Mac builds already
-do this.
-
-
-Miscellaneous issues
-====================
-
-Emacs mode
-----------
-
-There's an excellent Emacs editing mode for Python code; see the file
-Misc/python-mode.el.  Originally written by the famous Tim Peters, it
-is now maintained by the equally famous Barry Warsaw (it's no
-coincidence that they now both work on the same team).  The latest
-version, along with various other contributed Python-related Emacs
-goodies, is online at http://www.python.org/emacs/python-mode.  And
-if you are planning to edit the Python C code, please pick up the
-latest version of CC Mode http://www.python.org/emacs/cc-mode; it
-contains a "python" style used throughout most of the Python C source
-files.  (Newer versions of Emacs or XEmacs may already come with the
-latest version of python-mode.)
 
+Issue Tracker and Mailing List
+------------------------------
 
-Tkinter
--------
+We're soliciting bug reports about all aspects of the language.  Fixes
+are also welcome, preferable in unified diff format.  Please use the
+issue tracker:
 
-The setup.py script automatically configures this when it detects a
-usable Tcl/Tk installation.  This requires Tcl/Tk version 8.0 or
-higher.
+    http://bugs.python.org/
 
-For more Tkinter information, see the Tkinter Resource page:
-http://www.python.org/topics/tkinter/
+If you're not sure whether you're dealing with a bug or a feature, use
+the mailing list:
 
-There are demos in the Demo/tkinter directory.
+    python-3000@python.org
 
-Note that there's a Python module called "Tkinter" (capital T) which
-lives in Lib/lib-tk/Tkinter.py, and a C module called "_tkinter"
-(lower case t and leading underscore) which lives in
-Modules/_tkinter.c.  Demos and normal Tk applications import only the
-Python Tkinter module -- only the latter imports the C _tkinter
-module.  In order to find the C _tkinter module, it must be compiled
-and linked into the Python interpreter -- the setup.py script does
-this.  In order to find the Python Tkinter module, sys.path must be
-set correctly -- normal installation takes care of this.
+To subscribe to the list, use the mailman form:
 
+    http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-3000/
 
-Distribution structure
-----------------------
 
-Most subdirectories have their own README files.  Most files have
-comments.
+Build Instructions
+------------------
 
-Demo/           Demonstration scripts, modules and programs
-Doc/            Documentation sources (LaTeX)
-Grammar/        Input for the parser generator
-Include/        Public header files
-LICENSE         Licensing information
-Lib/            Python library modules
-Mac/            Macintosh specific resources
-Makefile.pre.in Source from which config.status creates the Makefile.pre
-Misc/           Miscellaneous useful files
-Modules/        Implementation of most built-in modules
-Objects/        Implementation of most built-in object types
-PC/             Files specific to PC ports (DOS, Windows, OS/2)
-PCbuild/        Build directory for Microsoft Visual C++
-Parser/         The parser and tokenizer and their input handling
-Python/         The byte-compiler and interpreter
-README          The file you're reading now
-Tools/          Some useful programs written in Python
-pyconfig.h.in   Source from which pyconfig.h is created (GNU autoheader output)
-configure       Configuration shell script (GNU autoconf output)
-configure.in    Configuration specification (input for GNU autoconf)
-install-sh      Shell script used to install files
-setup.py        Python script used to build extension modules
+On Unix, Linx, BSD, OSX, and Cygwin:
 
-The following files will (may) be created in the toplevel directory by
-the configuration and build processes:
+    ./configure
+    make
+    make test
+    sudo make install    # or "make altinstall"
 
-Makefile        Build rules
-Makefile.pre    Build rules before running Modules/makesetup
-buildno         Keeps track of the build number
-config.cache    Cache of configuration variables
-pyconfig.h      Configuration header
-config.log      Log from last configure run
-config.status   Status from last run of the configure script
-getbuildinfo.o  Object file from Modules/getbuildinfo.c
-libpython<version>.a    The library archive
-python          The executable interpreter
-reflog.txt      Output from running the regression suite with the -R flag 
-tags, TAGS      Tags files for vi and Emacs
+You can pass many options to the configure script; run "./configure
+--help" to find out more.  On OSX and Cygwin, the executable is called
+python.exe; elsewhere it's just python.
 
+On Mac OS X, if you have configured Python with --enable-framework,
+you should use "make frameworkinstall" to do the installation.  Note
+that this installs the Python executable in a place that is not
+normally on your PATH, you may want to set up a symlink in
+/usr/local/bin.
 
-That's all, folks!
-------------------
+If you wish, you can create a subdirectory and invoke configure from
+there.  For example:
 
+    mkdir debug
+    cd debug
+    ../configure --with-pydebug
+    make
+    make test
 
---Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)
+(This will fail if you *also* built at the top-level directory.  You
+should do a "make clean" at the toplevel first.)