diff -r 7c48bb929e6e Doc/library/urllib.request.rst
--- a/Doc/library/urllib.request.rst	Tue Mar 27 11:49:21 2012 +0200
+++ b/Doc/library/urllib.request.rst	Tue Mar 27 13:33:57 2012 -0400
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@
 The :mod:`urllib.request` module defines the following functions:
 
 
-.. function:: urlopen(url, data=None[, timeout], *, cafile=None, capath=None)
+.. function:: urlopen(url, data=None, timeout=None, *, cafile=None, capath=None)
 
    Open the URL *url*, which can be either a string or a
    :class:`Request` object.
@@ -44,8 +44,8 @@
 
    The optional *timeout* parameter specifies a timeout in seconds for
    blocking operations like the connection attempt (if not specified,
-   the global default timeout setting will be used).  This actually
-   only works for HTTP, HTTPS and FTP connections.
+   the global default socket module timeout setting will be used).
+   This actually only works for HTTP, HTTPS and FTP connections.
 
    The optional *cafile* and *capath* parameters specify a set of trusted
    CA certificates for HTTPS requests.  *cafile* should point to a single
diff -r 7c48bb929e6e Lib/urllib/request.py
--- a/Lib/urllib/request.py	Tue Mar 27 11:49:21 2012 +0200
+++ b/Lib/urllib/request.py	Tue Mar 27 13:33:57 2012 -0400
@@ -134,9 +134,10 @@
 __version__ = sys.version[:3]
 
 _opener = None
-def urlopen(url, data=None, timeout=socket._GLOBAL_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT,
-            *, cafile=None, capath=None):
+def urlopen(url, data=None, timeout=None, *, cafile=None, capath=None):
     global _opener
+    if timeout is None:
+      timeout = socket._GLOBAL_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT
     if cafile or capath:
         if not _have_ssl:
             raise ValueError('SSL support not available')