Actually, the good news is that Python 3 already has an improved GIL - it's much better than the 2.x version modulo one or two issues, and Unladen-Swallow's jit work is already well, well under way in the Python SVN tree. I'm hoping the latter will hit Python 3.2.

All told, removing the GIL without throwing all of the C extensions and other work people have done through the years onto a bonfire is really, really hard. We're getting incremental speed improvements, and if we're lucky, unladen-swallow will allow us to jump ahead performance wise very quickly.

As a side note; I agree with you - threads have their place, many of my apps make heavy, heavy use of python threads. I also use multiprocessing when I know it's CPU bound. You have to know which is the right tool, and when.