thread error when creating massive number of threads

[Randall Smith]

I was doing some testing with Python threads and found that when I try 
to create 300 threads one immediately after another, the 255th thread 
can't be created.  The error message I get is:

thread.error: can't start new thread

When I put a pause between the creation of each thread of .1 second, I 
have the same problem.  If I pause .2 seconds between creation of 
threads, no more problem.

Why is this?  If it helps, I'm using python 2.3.3 on Debian SID.

Thanks.

Randall