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Mon Oct 26 11:19:00 CET 2009 · https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2009-October/093356.html

Terry Reedy <tjreedy <at> udel.edu> writes:
> 
> I am curious as to whether the entire mechanism is or can be turned off 
> when not needed -- when there are not threads (other than the main, 
> starting thread)?

It is an implicit feature: when no thread is waiting on the GIL, the GIL-holding
thread isn't notified and doesn't try to release it at all (in the eval loop,
that is; GIL-releasing C extensions still release it).

Note that "no thread is waiting on the GIL" can mean one of two things:
- either there is only one Python thread
- or the other Python threads are doing things with the GIL released (zlib/bz2
compression, waiting on I/O, sleep()ing, etc.)

So, yes, it automatically "turns itself off".

Regards

Antoine.

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[Python-Dev] Reworking the GIL