I saw some discussion about this last year - being able to run xboard as a console-detached daemon process.
I think this would be very useful for programs that run on a chess server, especially on a remote machine. The idea is the engine will keep running and keep its connection even if you don't have a console connection to the box. If you need to control it remotely you can do so by sending it "zippy" commands from another account.
Apparently xboard doesn't support this at present - anyone know if there is an alternative winboard-compatible interface that does? (I'd take a UCI interface too but would prefer something supporting the winboard protocol).
--Jon