No, the socket is actually closed when response's close() method is called.  The problem is that the HTTPResponse object, buried deep within the nested classes returned from do_open(), has a circular reference, and _it_ will not go away.

No one is _relying_ on garbage collection in the sense that this is not, I think, designed behaviour, merely an unintentional effect of storing a bound method in the object inance.

As always, circular reference should be avoided when possible since relying on gc is not something to be done lightly.

Now, I think that changing the complicated wrapping at this stage is not possible, but merely replacing the bound method with a weak method might just do the trick.