I think they're looking more for corporate backers. They're probably very aware that their GILless PyPy will not run many of the programs and libraries out ther

I think they're looking more for corporate backers. They're probably very aware that their GILless PyPy will not run many of the programs and libraries out there that are not written to be thread-safe. And when the GIL is in place, there's really not much reason to write thread-safe code. At the very least you won't notice much when you're writing code unsafe code. So I assume they're not doing a kickstarter to prevent the following from happening: 1. The internet at large will assume they're going to get a GILless PyPy that can actually run their code. 2. A separate PyPy is released that doesn't run their code. 3. People are angry that they didn't get what the thought they were gonna get, like what often happens with kickstarter backed projects. 4. With no coporate support and waning public interest due to the uselessness of a GILless PyPy, the separately released project becomes unmaintained.