Hi Travis,

Glad you're back!

> I'm not convinced that Py_buffer should have grown a link to an object.
> I think this is a shortcut solution due to misuse of the protocol that
> may have unfortunate consequences. 

What consequences are you thinking about?

Specifically, why shouldn't Py_buffer have a link to the object? It's
the best way we've found to be able to release the buffer without having
to keep a link to the originator ourselves. The concern is to simplify
the API for most of its users. Especially, the new format codes ("s*" et
al.) can just fill the Py_buffer rather than return several things at
once.

(please note that link can be NULL if you don't want to have the
associated resource management)

> I'm not sure where PyBuffer_Release came from.  I can't find it in the
> PEP and don't remember what it's purpose is.

It's a replacement for PyObject_ReleaseBuffer(). Since a Py_buffer now
has a link to its originator, there's no need to pass it separately to
the releasing function.