I get the same bug on Fedora 8 (Python build 63161) and Kubuntu 8
(official Py30a5 release)---but not on Windows XP Home where the URL is
opened correctly.

Python 3.0a5+ (py3k:60668:63161, May 12 2008, 14:46:40)
[GCC 4.1.2 20070925 (Red Hat 4.1.2-33)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import webbrowser
>>> webbrowser.open("http://www.python.org")
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/home/mark/pycore/30/Lib/webbrowser.py", line 61, in open
if browser.open(url, new, autoraise):


Python 3.0a5 (r30a5:62856, May  9 2008, 11:27:40) 
[GCC 4.2.3 (Ubuntu 4.2.3-2ubuntu7)] on linux2
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license()" for more information.
IDLE 3.0a5      
>>> import webbrowser
>>> webbrowser.open("http://www.python.org")
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#1>", line 1, in <module>
    webbrowser.open("http://www.python.org")
...