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It does not have a GIL but this also means it's not compatible with a lot of Python code that needs a GIL or C-extensions. Not having a GIL by itself is not tricky, being compatible and not having a GIL is.

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I believe Python C-API compatibility isn't a really a goal for this implementation anyway. [1] HPy sounds like the best path forward?

1. https://github.com/RustPython/RustPython/issues/1940

why can't they implement a 'fake' GIL flag for those programs? so its backward compatible. (Yeah its probably a lot more work to write those extra modules/code paths... !)

It's not a "flag", really: it's a fundamental, implicit underlying assumption about the execution environment. The C extensions assume (roughly) that if they're executing, they can touch any part of the runtime without any synchronization whatsoever, because nobody else is executing (that's what GIL ensures).

Or, to put it another way, it's the first letter of the acronym: "Global Interpreter Lock".

You can't really "fake" a global lock. Either you're globally locking everywhere with the global lock or you aren't.

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