Module docstring says """Setting this option causes urlgrabber to call
the settimeout method on the Socket object used for the request.""" But
actually it temporarily changes the global default timeout. 

If other threads are creating sockets in this short timespan they might
fail in unexpected ways.

There might not be any other easy way to set a timeout. The long term
solution should be to provide a way to do it right. A short term
workaround it to update the documentation to describe current behaviour.

This bug is not related to Python Stdlib. There isn't a module by name
urlgrabber in Python Stdlib and the author is referring to
http://linux.duke.edu/projects/urlgrabber/help/urlgrabber.grabber.html

Author should move his suggestion to urlgrabber project.
We cannot do anything with socket.settimeout()

Please close this issue, Facundo.

Thanks,
Senthil