Side effects of a <defunct> kswapd ?

I have number of machines that have <defunct> kswapd processes - I'm fairly sure what is causing this - it's an issue with autofs v4 and a 'VFS: Busy inodes after unmount. Self-destruct in 5 seconds Have a nice day...' problem.

There are a few threads about this on the linux-nfs list - e.g.
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?t=106332683300004&r=1&w=2

Using autofs v4.1.0 appears to fix this problem.

However, I was wondering what would be the side effects of having a <defunct> kswapd? - the box _appears_ to keep running fine (running heavy CPU/memory applications).

Thanks

James Pearson