I'm hoping to create a Java SOAP server which I can deploy in Tomcat, or in JBoss, or in Geronimo, or in XYZ, etc. etc. etc.
Bottom line, it should have the least dependencies possible. I'm trying to avoid libraries outside of what's included in a standard java distro because of licensing/packaging/reusability issues.
Can any provide a link to where I should start looking, or some example code?
Apache Axis2 (http://ws.apache.org/axis2/) should provide what you're looking for, or JAX-WS (https://jax-ws.dev.java.net/) if you want more lightweight.
Wow.
There's the standard. You will be spending a lot of time on this project. You'll need to also check out the HTTP and XML specs to build those components.
Ignoring XFire and Axis2 is an very very expensive choice...
I recently used Metro 1.4 for this (an open source glassfish component) which implements the standard approach for web services.
Drop in the jars in a Java 5 web container, annotate your class and method with standard @tags, and let Metro do the rest.
I have been very pleased with performance in a Jetty container.
Java 1.6 introduced the possibility to create standard SOAP webservices with the standard JDK. There are many examples on the web, I just found this one: http://www.vogella.de/articles/JavaWebservice/article.html
If you use Spring web service module you don't need Axis or XFire. I think it's a good way to go if you're already using Spring.