Thanks, Thomas. Proposed solution via Eric Selje is to use node.js that is designed specifically for such purpose. A few lines of javascript to deliver a non-locking port server that can be deployed via standard installer, plus we get to disown and hand over to IT departments to manage themselves going forward? Marvelous! To have carved our own in the first place perhaps is a good example of the old "to the man with a hammer, everything is a nail"
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
