What steps will reproduce the problem?

Run the git-annex assitant, and then "sudo kill" it.

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

I expect it to die, instead I end up with:

14604   ??  S      0:00.64 ga assistant
14623   ??  Z      0:00.00 (git)
14624   ??  Z      0:00.00 (git)
14936   ??  Z      0:00.00 (git-annex)

The only way to clear these zombies is to reboot. Perhaps there is some resource not being correctly terminated under exceptional conditions?

Note that on OpenIndiana the problem is even more severe: Aborting git-annex at the wrong time leaves behind both zombie processes and lock files which cause the machine to suddenly halt if I try to access them in any way (via mv, rsync, etc)!

What version of git-annex are you using? On what operating system?

4d1e0c9 on OS X 10.8.2.

Please provide any additional information below.