Release 3.44.0
diff --git a/Lib/fontTools/__init__.py b/Lib/fontTools/__init__.py
index 82ea0bd..3d2f79c 100644
--- a/Lib/fontTools/__init__.py
+++ b/Lib/fontTools/__init__.py
@@ -5,6 +5,6 @@
log = logging.getLogger(__name__)
-version = __version__ = "3.43.3.dev0"
+version = __version__ = "3.44.0"
__all__ = ["version", "log", "configLogger"]
diff --git a/NEWS.rst b/NEWS.rst
index ab54e4b..2a00702 100644
--- a/NEWS.rst
+++ b/NEWS.rst
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+3.44.0 (released 2019-08-02)
+----------------------------
+
- NOTE: This is the last scheduled release to support Python 2.7. The upcoming fonttools
v4.x series is going to require Python 3.6 or greater.
- [varLib] Added new ``varLib.instancer`` module for partially instantiating variable
diff --git a/setup.cfg b/setup.cfg
index 4de4b9b..e8e6401 100644
--- a/setup.cfg
+++ b/setup.cfg
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
[bumpversion]
-current_version = 3.43.3.dev0
+current_version = 3.44.0
commit = True
tag = False
tag_name = {new_version}
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index be091d3..c259cfd 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -352,7 +352,7 @@
setup(
name="fonttools",
- version="3.43.3.dev0",
+ version="3.44.0",
description="Tools to manipulate font files",
author="Just van Rossum",
author_email="just@letterror.com",