This is strictly about moving the "obmalloc" runtime state from
`_PyRuntimeState` to `PyInterpreterState`. Doing so improves isolation
between interpreters, specifically most of the memory (incl. objects)
allocated for each interpreter's use. This is important for a
per-interpreter GIL, but such isolation is valuable even without it.
FWIW, a per-interpreter obmalloc is the proverbial
canary-in-the-coalmine when it comes to the isolation of objects between
interpreters. Any object that leaks (unintentionally) to another
interpreter is highly likely to cause a crash (on debug builds at
least). That's a useful thing to know, relative to interpreter
isolation.
The global allocators were stored in 3 static global variables: _PyMem_Raw, _PyMem, and _PyObject. State for the "small block" allocator was stored in another 13. That makes a total of 16 global variables. We are moving all 16 to the _PyRuntimeState struct as part of the work for gh-81057. (If PEP 684 is accepted then we will follow up by moving them all to PyInterpreterState.)
https://github.com/python/cpython/issues/81057
Eric Snow