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

##</code><code>##

my $pid = open my $cmdfh, "-|", '/path/to/program'
    or die "Cannot fork: $!\n";

for ( 1 .. 10 ) {
    print ".";
    sleep 1;
}

kill 9, $pid;