The GIL is currently relied upon. It will likely go away eventually.

https://py-free-threading.github.io/
https://docs.python.org/3.14/howto/free-threading-extensions.html

• Update unicode to say GIL not needed
• The utf8/offset mappers likely need critical sections
• Update apsw module to say GIL not needed
• Update usage of the APIs in the above doc so that borrowed reference APIs are replaced with strong reference ones, or use new macros that do critical sections
• There can't be any returns or gotos inside blocks with critical section boundaries
• Almost certainly the best thing to do is write a tool to process the source that does all this checking
• Add compat versions of those APIs for older Pythons
• Mutex the statement cache
• Check all global, Connection, Cursor etc PyObject variables that are mutable
• Check all function bodies that have mutable input parameters