This C code:

#include <Python.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    Py_Initialize(); Py_Finalize();
    Py_Initialize(); Py_Finalize();
    Py_Initialize(); Py_Finalize();
    Py_Initialize(); Py_Finalize();
    Py_Initialize(); Py_Finalize();
    Py_Initialize(); Py_Finalize();
    Py_Initialize(); Py_Finalize();
}

Produces this output:
[7438 refs]
[7499 refs]
[7550 refs]
[7601 refs]
[7652 refs]
[7703 refs]
[7754 refs]

A similar program configured to call the Py_Initialize()/Py_Finalize() 1000 times ends up with:
...
[58295 refs]
[58346 refs]
[58397 refs]

This is with a fresh debug build of Python 2.5.0 on Windows XP, using Visual C++ 2003.

Does the title of this issue accurately reflect the current status of the Python interpreter?

Yes, some objects are not cleaned in finalization.
This is not a problem in usual cases though, when the interpreter is
started only once.

> Does the title of this issue accurately reflect the current status of the Python interpreter?

Yes, here is the running result on current 3.3 latest code:
[37182 refs]
[39415 refs]
[41607 refs]
[43799 refs]
[45991 refs]
[48183 refs]
[50375 refs]


This seems to be a known bug that Py_Finalize() doesn't free all objects according doc http://docs.python.org/dev/c-api/init.html?highlight=py_finalize#Py_Finalize