This is interesting. Simple Web Services Framework is an open source project written in Java that is focused on giving you more control over plumbing and stuff like that:
Simple is a Java framework for the development of web services. The API provides a highly concurrent fully featured HTTP server for serving resources such as files and directories and also provides utilitys for compontent loading similar to Java Servlets. The component loading facility provides a similar service model and lifecycle to that of Java Servlets. Components can be loaded and linked to specific URL patterns from remote locations using Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI).
Simple differs from the Java Servlet API in that it provides extension to the server and services at a lower level. It introdices the concept of a protocol handler which can be implemented and used for management of services requested.
It looks like something in between RMI and SOAP web services. Hmm…