Comment 1 for bug 117333

BTW, this issue also exists in 2.16.1-0ubuntu1 (edgy) and 2.18.2-0ubuntu1 (gutsy). It probably is in every version of Ubuntu, since the upstream bug was opened in 2002, and it's not fixed yet.

It doesn't sound like upstream has any interest in fixing it. Apparently the "--tab" option was intended only to allow more than one tab in a new window; it was not supposed to open a new tab in an existing window.

There are two ways to fix this:

  - Changing the wording of "--help" to indicate the actual purpose of "--tab".
  - Make "--tab" do what "--help" says it does.

The second option is probably better, but it may be hard to get the change accepted upstream.