Gamin question

[Jonathan Byrne]

For about 3 days now, a process named gam_server has been consuming over 
95% CPU.  The system remains fairly responsive despite this, but I 
don't know exactly what gam_server is supposed to do and why it needs 
so much CPU to do it.  It appears to be undocumented, and googling 
didn't yield much in the way of its job except that it's "a file and 
directory alteration monitor."  Is this for intrusion detection 
purposes, or something else?  Do I really need it, and what will happen 
if remove it?

TIA,

Jonathan