In orca.py there is a die() method [1]:

  def die(exitCode=1):

      # We know what we are doing here, so tell pylint not to flag
      # the _exit method call as a warning.  The disable-msg is
      # localized to just this method.
      #
      # pylint: disable-msg=W0212

      os._exit(exitCode)

According to docs.python.org [2] we should not be using it:

  os._exit(n)

  Exit to the system with status n, without calling cleanup handlers,
  flushing stdio buffers, etc.

  Note: The standard way to exit is sys.exit(n). _exit() should
  normally only be used in the child process after a fork().

It is this (mis)use that is causing the regression reported [3] with respect to orca -v terminating any running orca instances. Whilst we could hack around this bug in die(), I think the thing to do instead is cause die() to use sys.exit().

[1] http://git.gnome.org/browse/orca/tree/src/orca/orca.py#n1672
[2] http://docs.python.org/library/os.html?highlight=os._exit#os._exit
[3] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=626967#c20