You have learned that the GIL sets a significant constraint on our multithreading programs in Python, especially those with CPU-bound tasks. For this reason, many Python developers have come to view the GIL in a negative light, and the term "the infamous GIL" has started to become popular; it is not surprising that some have even advocated the complete removal of the GIL from the Python language.

In fact, multiple attempts to remove the GIL have been made by prominent Python users. However, the GIL is so deeply implanted in the implementation of the language, and the execution of most libraries and packages that are not thread-safe is so significantly dependent on the GIL, that the removal of the GIL will actually engender bugs as well as backward incompatibility issues for your Python programs. A number of Python developers and researchers tried to completely omit the GIL from Python execution, and most existing C extensions, which depend heavily on the functionalities of the GIL, stopped working.

Now there are other viable solutions to address the problems that we have discussed; in other words, the GIL is in every way replaceable. However, most of these solutions contain so many complex instructions that they actually decrease the performance of sequential and I/O-bound programs, which are not affected by the GIL. So, these solutions will slow down single-threaded or multithreaded I/O programs, which actually make up a large percentage of existing Python applications. Interestingly, the creator of Python, Guido van Rossum, also commented on this topic in his article, It isn't Easy to Remove the GIL:

Unfortunately, this request has not been achieved by any of the proposed alternatives to the GIL. The GIL remains an integral part of the Python language.