I would like to use goodweather gdesklet and so far no problem
but I have this feeling that it is not able to get past the proxy/firewall.
I am using ubuntu gutsy and for example in env I have the http_proxy defined and apt-get gets through the firewall - however, somehow the goodweather desklet is stuck with stupid. I wonder if I could try another
simple desklet to see whether it is really proxy or this particular desklet...

There is also a patch available for download.py but I am not able to download it - for example, it is discussed here: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-513659.html

but I can not download it - any ideas if I could do some changes to files
by myself? Or content of the very patch?

Well, unless goodweather is trying to be extra stupid, shouldnt have to do anything? I use proxy and gdesklets and they all work once I set the network proxy settings in ubuntu.