> But for KILL and TERM it could wait a few milliseconds... It wouldn't make sense: 1) the TERM signal can be trapped by the process, and "kill" has no right

> But for KILL and TERM it could wait a few milliseconds... It wouldn't make sense: 1) the TERM signal can be trapped by the process, and "kill" has no right to assume that the process is supposed to quit; 2) the KILL signal is managed by the kernel and it just works (if it doesn't, then your kernel is buggy and you have more serious problems); even if "ps" shows the process as still alive after a "kill -9", you can assume it'd dead process walking.