Re: origin of "daemons"

From: Bill Marcum (bmarcum_at_iglou.com.urgent)
Date: 12/08/03 

Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2003 08:09:52 -0500

On Sun, 07 Dec 2003 17:49:09 GMT, Jerry Feldman
  <gaf-noSPAM@blu.org> wrote:
> On Sun, 07 Dec 2003 18:14:15 +0100
> Wolfgang Jeltsch <jeltsch@tu-cottbus.de> wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> server processes in Unix and similar systems are normally called
>> "daemons". Can someone tell me when and by who this naming was
>> invented and what were the reasons for it? Pointers to appropriate web
>> pages would also be very welcome.
> I believe that I read somewhere that daemon is an acronym for "Display
> And Execution MONitor".
> Unfortunately, I was not able to locate this or any other definition.

According to the Jargon File http://www.catb.org/jargon/

:daemon: /day'mn/ or /dee'mn/ n. [from the mythological meaning, later
   rationalized as the acronym `Disk And Execution MONitor'] A program
that
   is not invoked explicitly, but lies dormant waiting for some
   condition(s) to occur. The idea is that the perpetrator of the
condition
   need not be aware that a daemon is lurking (though often a program
will
   commit an action only because it knows that it will implicitly invoke
a
   daemon). 

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Relevant Pages

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  • Re: origin of "daemons"
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