Python already has a history of "misrepresenting" the ycope of the change (like changing behaviour of one of core data types and calling it just a major version change — that's really a new language IMHO).

Still, that's only a marketing move, technically the choice was still the right one, just like this one is.

It's opt-in at the moment. It won't be the default behavior for a couple releases.

Maybe we'll get Python 4 with no GIL.

/me ducks

Agreed. This should have been Python 4.