Eu não tenho OS X para testar isso, mas encontrei essa resposta na rede ( fonte ):
Because of the way
openworks [...] programs started withopenwouldn't have root privileges. The system isn't designed to do that.[...] However combining
openandsudo[...] results insudorunningopenas root, butopenstill opens the application as the original user!
Evitar open deve funcionar:
sudo -b /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit .bash_profile