2.6, 3.0, and truly independent intepreters

[greg]

Andy wrote:

> 1) Independent interpreters (this is the easier one--and solved, in
> principle anyway, by PEP 3121, by Martin v. Löwis

Something like that is necessary for independent interpreters,
but not sufficient. There are also all the built-in constants
and type objects to consider. Most of these are statically
allocated at the moment.

> 2) Barriers to "free threading".  As Jesse describes, this is simply
> just the GIL being in place, but of course it's there for a reason.
> It's there because (1) doesn't hold and there was never any specs/
> guidance put forward about what should and shouldn't be done in multi-
> threaded apps

No, it's there because it's necessary for acceptable performance
when multiple threads are running in one interpreter. Independent
interpreters wouldn't mean the absence of a GIL; it would only
mean each interpreter having its own GIL.

-- 
Greg