m2crypto blocking all other threads

I'm using m2crypto for a SSL-based xmlrpc service.  This service is
frequently DOSed by what appears to be a bug in m2crypto: it blocks
all other threads at various points.  I've attached a small program
that shows this behaviour.  Start the server.  It will keep printing
"test" from a separate thread.  Now, telnet to the 9443 port and do
nothing.  You'll notice that after the "LOOP: SSL accept:
before/accept initialization" message, no more "test" messages are
printed.  The server will not respond to any new connections until
this connection has done something.  This has been verified with v
0.07, 0.09, 0.13, 0.15.

At some points we experience processes that according to strace is
waiting for a read on a remote socket, while a check on the remote
host reveals that no process is talking on that socket anymore.  I'm
not sure if that is related.

#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys, time, threading
demo_dir='/tmp/m2crypto-0.15/demo/ssl'
sys.path.insert(0, demo_dir)

from https_srv import *

def my_wt():
    while True:
        time.sleep(0.5)
        print "test"

if __name__ == '__main__':
    threading.Thread(target=my_wt).start()
    ctx = init_context('sslv23', '%s/server.pem' % demo_dir, '%s/ca.pem' % demo_dir, 
                       SSL.verify_none)
    httpsd = HTTPS_Server(('', 9443), HTTP_Handler, ctx)
    httpsd.serve_forever()

BTW: under 0.15, the https_srv.py complains from line 126 -> SSL/Context.py: 118:
TypeError: ssl_ctx_load_verify_locations() argument 3 must be string, not None

-- 
Rune Frøysa