Building Python 3.13 dev releases + no GIL #658
Description
Python 3.13 has 2 alpha releases and a 3rd one due out in a week. Here's the release schedule for more details
Of particular note, the --disable-gil build flag was added, which should allow building a Python with the GIL disabled. It's important to note that this mode is not ABI compatible with the mode that keeps the GIL. So any extension module built with Python would need to be rebuilt with the no GIL interpreter to be used with it. That said, in no GIL mode there is an environment variable to toggle GIL usage, PYTHONGIL. Eventually the ABI stability will be addressed, but this is still several Python releases away. So we will need to decide what to do before then
Naively would propose building both build modes
We may also want to explore building a couple common libraries (like NumPy, SciPy, scikit-learn) to try with. IIRC some libraries already have fixes included for no GIL. So those seem like a preferable starting point
There is some interest in building out packages with Anaconda. So think we will want to coordinate
Would be interested to hear thoughts on this 🙂