Upgrade to Python 2.7.17 (backporting features from PEP 466)

[Akshay Shah]

Following @actionparsnip's suggestion, re-filing https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/python-defaults/+question/260428 as a bug. Quoted from the original question:

"What are the official plans for Python 2.7.9 (and further 2.7 patch releases) in supported releases? As per PEP 466 (https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0466/), these will receive handpicked security-related feature additions from the Python 3 series. Will these new releases be included in released-and-still-supported Ubuntu versions? (I realise Ubuntu releases don't generally get new upstream software versions, but I feel this case might warrant an exception.)

Note that I'm specifically asking about the *features* mentioned in PEP 466 (and any future additions), i.e. the new functions in the hmac and hashlib modules and the backported ssl module, not any security issues in existing functionality."

[Hans Joachim Desserud (hjd)]

I'm afraid I can't really answer your question. Though there is a more general issue on upgrading to 2.7.9 (see bug 1401322), that doesn't touch upon the functionality in the PEP you mention specificially. So I'm not sure if it would be right to mark this as a duplicate of that bug report. I've taken the liberty to update the title of this one though.