CFFI 1.16.0rc1 available

[Matt Davis]

Hi all,

The new 1.16.0rc1 pre-release of CFFI has been tagged on GitHub and is available for testing on PyPI. The new release adds support for Python 3.12 and drops support for all end-of-life Python versions. Full release notes are at https://github.com/python-cffi/cffi/releases/tag/v1.16.0rc1.

With the removal of `distutils` from Python 3.12, projects using CFFI features that depend on `distutils` at runtime must add an explicit dependency on `setuptools` to function under Python 3.12+. CFFI does not declare a runtime `setuptools` requirement to avoid an unnecessary dependency for projects that do not require it.

Please test the pre-release and file any new issues at https://github.com/python-cffi/cffi/issues. Barring any show-stopping problems, we plan to do a final release of 1.16.0 on September 28th. The short pre-release window ensures that functional wheels will be available for next week's scheduled Python 3.12.0 release.

- CFFI release management team