It is too hard to track this issue without quotes from manual. Let's bring context into discussion:

http://docs.python.org/library/time.html#time.altzone
  UTC offset of the local DST timezone if one is defined. Only use this if daylight is nonzero.
http://docs.python.org/library/time.html#time.daylight
  Nonzero if a DST timezone is defined.
http://docs.python.org/library/time.html#time.timezone
  UTC offset of the local (non-DST) timezone


So, to answer a question "What is the current UTC offset?" you need to:
if time.daylight:
  if time.altzone: # using only if defined
     use time.altzone
  else:
     use time.timezone
else:
  use time.timezone


1. Is that really works like described above?
2. Should we at least group these timezone variables?


As for offtopic UTC vs GMT - I doubt there is a way to clearly express that the offset sign of the returned values is negated in comparison with real "UTC offsets" without resorting to some king of alternative east/west scale.