The linked list of objects was a global variable, which broke isolation between interpreters, causing crashes. To solve this, we've moved the linked list to each interpreter.
Moving it valuable with a per-interpreter GIL. However, it is also useful without one, since it allows us to identify refleaks within a single interpreter or where references are escaping an interpreter. This becomes more important as we move the obmalloc state to PyInterpreterState.
https://github.com/python/cpython/issues/102304
The essentially eliminates the global variable, with the associated benefits. This is also a precursor to isolating this bit of state to PyInterpreterState.
Folks that currently read _Py_RefTotal directly would have to start using _Py_GetGlobalRefTotal() instead.
https://github.com/python/cpython/issues/102304
Eric Snow