Setting process group in shell startup scripts

[Brian Fitzgerald]

Why it is desired to avoid setting a process group for the main shell (and
presumably its children) in a boot script (such as rc.local)?  Comments in
these scripts state that since "echo" is a shell builtin, output from
"echo" is redirected to "/dev/console" to prevent such an occurrence.

Post the answer, or mail it (and all flames) to me by Groundhog Day and
I'll summarize.

Brian Fitzgerald