# HG changeset patch
# Parent 6c167d33a7701082cd6c91113dc44f42f8c8792b

diff --git a/Doc/library/socketserver.rst b/Doc/library/socketserver.rst
--- a/Doc/library/socketserver.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/socketserver.rst
@@ -39,11 +39,17 @@
 
 When inheriting from :class:`ThreadingMixIn` for threaded connection behavior,
 you should explicitly declare how you want your threads to behave on an abrupt
-shutdown. The :class:`ThreadingMixIn` class defines an attribute
+shutdown.  The :class:`ThreadingMixIn` class defines an attribute
 *daemon_threads*, which indicates whether or not the server should wait for
-thread termination. You should set the flag explicitly if you would like threads
-to behave autonomously; the default is :const:`False`, meaning that Python will
-not exit until all threads created by :class:`ThreadingMixIn` have exited.
+thread termination.  You should set the flag explicitly if you would like
+threads to behave autonomously; the default is :const:`None`, meaning that they
+inherit the *daemon* flag from the parent thread.  If you set it to
+:const:`False`, Python will not exit until all threads created by
+:class:`ThreadingMixIn` have exited.
+
+.. versionchanged:: 3.3
+   previously, the *daemon_threads = False* flag was ignored.
+
 
 Server classes have the same external methods and attributes, no matter what
 network protocol they use.
diff --git a/Lib/socketserver.py b/Lib/socketserver.py
--- a/Lib/socketserver.py
+++ b/Lib/socketserver.py
@@ -587,7 +587,7 @@
 
     # Decides how threads will act upon termination of the
     # main process
-    daemon_threads = False
+    daemon_threads = None
 
     def process_request_thread(self, request, client_address):
         """Same as in BaseServer but as a thread.
@@ -606,8 +606,8 @@
         """Start a new thread to process the request."""
         t = threading.Thread(target = self.process_request_thread,
                              args = (request, client_address))
-        if self.daemon_threads:
-            t.daemon = True
+        if self.daemon_threads is not None:
+            t.daemon = bool(self.daemon_threads)
         t.start()