It was created by Guido van Rossum as a successor to another language (called ABC) between 1985 and 1990, and is currently used on a large array of domains like web development, desktop applications, data science, DevOps, and automation/productivity.

Python is developed under an OSI-approved open source license, making it freely usable and distributable, even for commercial use. Python's license is administered by the Python Software Foundation .