Logged In: YES 
user_id=21627

Peter, I have considered these reasons, and believe they
don't apply.

1) Dropping the last reference to a Variable (IntVar,
StringVar) also causes the variable to be unset. More
importantly, changing the behaviour now would cause
backwards incompatibilities: Existing applications rely on
not having to release images explicitly.

2) While this may be true in general and for the Python
language, it is not the case for CPython and Tkinter.Image
specifically. If there are no references to the image
anymore, it is released immediately, in CPython, withiyt
waiting for garbage collection to be invoked.

If you need a way to appeal this decision, you will have to
write a PEP. Describe the proposed change and implementation
strategy (explaining in detail how your approach solves the
backwards compatibility issue), then discuss this proposed
change with the Python community.