Organizations gain security updates for business critical Python 2 applications

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Apr. 30, 2020 – To ensure organizations can meet their security, compliance and support obligations, ActiveState will continue to provide commercial support for Python 2, even though it reached End of Life (EOL) on Jan. 1, 2020. Today, ActiveState announced the release of ActivePython 2.7.18, the only enterprise-grade Python 2 distribution that incorporates the last official release of Python 2.

As the Python Package Index download statistics show, developers are continuing to work with Python 2 resources months after the Python Software Foundation officially ended support. For many enterprises, that means they may no longer be in compliance with internal support policies or even in some cases, external regulations such as the need for commercial support and security fixes for PCI-compliant payment systems.

Click to Tweet: @ActiveState releases latest version of ActivePython to provide enterprises with continued support for their Python 2 mission-critical applications. https://tinyurl.com/ya9z8apg #opensource

The ActiveState Python 2 EOL Survey found that most organizations intend to migrate their Python 2 code base to Python 3. However, it also showed that many of those organizations had not finished that migration prior to the EOL date. Some enterprises are unable to migrate for a variety of reasons, such as reliance on a library that currently has no Python 3 equivalent. For these organizations, ActiveState’s Python 2 support has proven essential in helping them maintain business as usual during their migration efforts, or providing them with a viable path forward should they choose not to migrate.

ActiveState provides organizations with:

  • Support and backported security fixes for third-party packages in customer applications, as well as the core Python 2 language and standard libraries
  • Regularly scheduled patches and updates, which are required for compliance with regulations such as PCI 
  • Migration/rewrite advice that can help streamline efforts by identifying Python 3 packages that are well-maintained, vulnerability-free and licensed for commercial use

Jeff Rouse, vice president, product management, ActiveState, said: “We’ve been providing enterprises with Python 2 support for over 20 years, and continue to do so today, beyond Python 2’s EOL date. But numerous new customers have also come to us in just the past few months to help them support and ensure the security of their mission-critical Python 2 applications. Some of these customers are currently unable to migrate for a variety of market or technical reasons, but others are not intending to migrate at all. In keeping with our core mission, ActiveState is happy to provide developers with Python 2 solutions that just work, while making those solutions easy to adopt by enterprises.”

About ActiveState
ActiveState helps enterprises scale securely with open source languages and gives developers the kinds of tools they love to use. More than 2 million developers and 97% of Fortune 1,000 enterprises use ActiveState to support mission-critical systems and speed up software development while enhancing oversight and increasing quality.

 

Media Contact:
Zak Greant
pr@activestate.com