RFC: Remove "destructor" from PEAR class

Hi, This problem was already mentioned on the web [1] but did not receive enough coverage here. PEAR class has this abomination function _PEAR() {

    if ($this->_debug) {
        printf("PEAR destructor called, class=%s\n", get_class($this));
    }

} as the "destructor". And when the constructor of the child class calls PEAR's constructor, it checks whether the class or any of the *parent* classes have a "destructor". Thus each class that extends PEAR, EVEN IF IT DOES NOT USE THE DESTRUCTOR FEATURE ITSELF, gets registered in PEAR's list of objects, preventing garbage collection. This creates a huge problem for long running scripts. I hit the problem trying to mirror a large enough site. Current version of Net_Socket (1.0.2), used by HTTP_Request, used by HTTP_Client, used by my mirroring script extends PEAR. So for every page the script requests an instance of Net_Socket gets registered in the destructor list and the script eventually grows beyond the 8Mb limit. Oops. Now, as the "destructor" thing is completely useless and just causes trouble I suggest removing it. I'd like to hear either of the two responses: 1) Yes, we will remove this. 2) No, we will not remove this for the following reasons: ... I specifically don't want to hear the usual BS about "don't include / extend / touch with a 10 ft pole" PEAR.php, as there are existing packages that suffer from this. [1] http://www.procata.com/blog/archives/2004/05/27/rephlux-and-php-memory-usage/