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open is a desktop-independent variation on gnome-open and
kfmclient. So it's something that desktop could be set up to
run, using cmd = ["open", url].

On the other hand, it also exposes an API to Python progams,
so you could (in theory) replace Unix-specific parts of
desktop with (using the development version):

from open import run
run(filename, have = ['open'])

except that it'd use the users "open" preferences instead of
their desktop preferences. This is why I proposed the OPENER
environment variable. I don't run a desktop, so the proposed
version would default to trying os.startfile.  I'd rather it
use open.

   <mike

Sorry 'bout the previous double post. I accidently tabbed to
the submit button...