Ok, so I plugged in the ability for us to remove applications from  
the system at runtime.  We also have the ability to add them at runtime.

See this test for how it basically works:

  http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/openejb/trunk/openejb3/
container/openejb-core/src/test/java/org/apache/openejb/assembler/
classic/RedeployTest.java

I've even added a class that we can use for scanning directories  
(org.apache.openejb.util.DirectoryMonitor).  At this point we are  
just moments away from some sort of hot deploy / undeploy directory  
where people can drop apps.

  http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/openejb/trunk/openejb3/
container/openejb-core/src/main/java/org/apache/openejb/util/
DirectoryMonitor.java

What we're lacking is some intelligent way to configure all this in  
your openejb.conf file.  At minimum someone should be able to specify  
whether or not they want to scan past the initial startup and what  
the poll interval might be.  We could potentially just add these as  
attributes on the <Deployments> element of our conf.

Thoughts, ideas?  Brainstorming welcome.

-David