Specifically, I know this is not generally acceptable, as the processes aren't well shielded from outside influence.
Is it acceptable to create background jobs for "services?"
Se não houver outra maneira (isto é, o serviço não vai funcionar por conta própria), então provavelmente sim. O start-stop-daemon
do Debian tem um parâmetro --background
para tais casos:
-b, --background
Typically used with programs that don't detach on their own.
This option will force start-stop-daemon to fork before starting
the process, and force it into the background. WARNING:
start-stop-daemon cannot check the exit status if the process
fails to execute for any reason. This is a last resort, and is
only meant for programs that either make no sense forking on
their own, or where it's not feasible to add the code for them
to do this themselves.