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If OPENER is not standard in any way (ad hoc or otherwise),
why add it?  Moght not doing that without talking to other
people about it (presumably on freedesktop, including GNOME,
KDE. etc. people) be positively harmful? 

Mike: is this Python version of Apple's "open" actually
published on the web somewhere?  I can't find it.  I also
notice that "open" is already in use as a shell wrapper
around open (2) the system call.  "start" seems unused, FWTW
here.