Bug#165063: debian-policy: Section `12.8.3 Packages providing a terminal emulator' fails to sufficently document the -e option

[Jonathan Amery <jdamery@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

In article <m2n.s.181saO-000tT3@chiark.greenend.org.uk> you write:
>On Wed, Oct 16, 2002 at 05:49:15PM +0100, Jonathan David Amery wrote:
>>  The current:
>>
>>   * Support the command-line option -e command, which creates a new terminal
>>     window[53] and runs the specified command.
>>
>>  doesn't distinguish between gnome-terminal's -e option and xterm's -e
>> option, which are incompatible.  (gnome-terminal provides a wrapper to
>> fix this problem).
>
>What's to distinguish?  Does gnome-terminal's -e option *not* "create a
>new terminal window and run the specified command"?

 It doesn't interpret the command line after the -e option the same
way that xterm does:

 xterm -e less .bash_profile

 runs `less .bash_profile' in a new terminal window whereas

 gnome-terminal -e less .bash_profile

 runs `less' in a new terminal window (and doesn't appear to do
anything useful with the .bash_profile argument at all).

 gnome-terminal -e 'less .bash_profile' works of course, but that
doesn't work for xterm.

>The policy is telling you what your -e option must do for you to be able
>to call yourself an x-terminal-emulator.

 However, based on the policy description you can't currently use
x-terminal-emulator -e to run anything other than a command that has
no arguments and whos name requires no kind of quoting.

 J.