These restrictions are undocumented both in the
xrange doc string and in the reference manual
(Info node 'XRange Type'):

  >>> xrange(maxint, maxint + 10)
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
  OverflowError: long int too large to convert to int

  >>> xrange(-100, maxint)
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
  OverflowError: xrange() result has too many items

I hope the overflows below are bugs and not
features.  It works if 3/-3 is replaced with 1/-1:

  >>> xrange(0, maxint, 3)
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
  OverflowError: integer addition

  >>> xrange(0, -maxint, -3)
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
  OverflowError: integer addition

Python installation:

  Python 2.3.3 (#1, May 25 2004, 20:22:36) 
  [GCC 3.2.3] on sunos5
  Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license"
for    more information.
  >>> from sys import maxint
  >>> "%x" % maxint
  '7fffffff'