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In manpage of xdotool

getwindowpid [window]

Output the PID owning a given window. This requires effort from the application owning a window and may not work for all windows. This uses _NET_WM_PID property of the window. See "EXTENDED WINDOW MANAGER HINTS" below for more information.

When a process is said to own a window, what does that mean? I have several guesses about it:

  • Is the process the one which has created the window?

  • A window is not a process, so ownership can't imply the parent-child relation between processes.

  • what is the relation between a window of a process and the controlling terminal of the same process ('s session)? Is a window of a process related to terminal related signals (SIGINT, SIGHUP, SIGQUIT)?

Thanks.

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    It doesn't mean anything; any X11 client can set the _NET_WM_PID property on any window to whatever it likes, eg. xprop -id $WINDOWID -f _NET_WM_PID 32c -set _NET_WM_PID 1 will not make your terminal window owned by init. Processes and/or X11 clients do not own windows. Commented Dec 5, 2018 at 17:38

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From mosvy's comment:

any X11 client can set the _NET_WM_PID property on any window to whatever it likes, eg. xprop -id $WINDOWID -f _NET_WM_PID 32c -set _NET_WM_PID 1 will not make your terminal window owned by init. Processes and/or X11 clients do not own windows

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