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 process identifier, 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. Last updated: 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. Last updated: 2001-06-16
