Something like this:

import gzip
fin = open("/dev/urandom", "rb")
fout = gzip.GzipFile("out", "wb")
for i in range(4500): fout.write(fin.read(1024*1024))
fout.close()

will result in an error like:

Exception 'long int too large to convert to int' raised
of class 'exceptions.OverflowError':
...
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.2/gzip.py", line 253, in
close
    write32(self.fileobj, self.size)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.2/gzip.py", line 19, in
write32
    output.write(struct.pack("<l", value))

Tested in python 2.2.1

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Current CVS has a fix for this, as of revision 1.37 (part of 2.3a1).

See patch 618135: http://www.python.org/sf/618135.

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From what I can gather from cvs log this was not backported.  Should it be?

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I'd propose to close this bug (fixed in the 2.3 series).

The fix can't be backported, because 2.2.3 was the final
version of the 2.2 series.

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No one ever said 2.2.3 was the final release of the 2.2 branch.  
There was talk just last month about a 2.2.4 release towards the 
end of the year.

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Sorry for the error in my last comment: a backport can still
be done for 2.2.4 or later. It seems the "final" confused
me. I found it out some minutes after I wrote the comment.

As the error is still present in 2.2.3, I will provide a
patch that backports it (you can then vote for it <wink> :)

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It's been a year - can we assume, with 2.4rc1 out, that there really won't 
be a 2.2.4 to put a backport into, and close this?

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Yes, I think it can.