my $child = fork;
if ($child) {
  # I am in the parent...wait then kill
  for my $i in (1..10) {
    sleep 1;
    print ".";
  }
  kill -9, $child;
}
else {
  # Run the background program
  exec '/path/to/program/that/would/output/something/and/run/forever > /dev/null 2>&1';
}