Agreed. At the very least, we need to document the new configure option; it would also make sense to include a warning in the patched function(s), and a note in the platform guide that the configure option exists and may be required for some uses.
Agreed - and there’s no guarantee that Apple, upon learning that this is what Python is doing (since the code and this discussion is in the open), wouldn’t add i!t!m!s, smti, and any other potential variants to the ban list. That why I think patching is the better option.