This provides a ruby library and also command line executable
WaitPid.wait_pid pid_number # waits until that process exits
command line:
$ wait_pid pid_number # waits until that process exits
Currently it just polls 100 times/s to see if the process is still around.
Apparently in Linux there is no default way to wait for a pid to terminate that is not your child PID. This library works in windows or linux (since it just polls till they die). If more granularity is needed let me know [it is possible, at least in windows, or a higher polling capability could be made optional in linux].
Feedback welcome.