process

1. operating system, software The sequence of states of an

executing program. A process consists of the program code

(which may be shared with other processes which are executing

the same program), private data, and the state of the

processor, particularly the values in its registers. It

may have other associated resources such as a processidentifier, open files, CPU time limits, shared memory,

child processes, and signal handlers.

One process may, on some platforms, consist of many

threads. A multitasking operating system can run

multiple processes concurrently or in parallel, and allows

a process to spawn "child" processes.

(2001-06-16)

2. business The sequence of activities, people, and systems

involved in carrying out some business or achieving some

desired result. E.g. software development process, project

management process, configuration management process.

(2001-06-16)