Best methods for providing multi-language access to an application platform

I'm developing an open-source cross-platform application platform written in .NET/Mono,

Now I'm struggling to grasp the problem of people wanting to use the framework through non CLI languages e.g. Python.

I'm aware that some languages have a FFI (Foreign function interface), but to me seems 开发者_JAVA百科like a huge amount of work to produce bindings for a few languages.

I have used SOAP extensively in my profession which seems to be the all-round cure as it's language neutral, but for local apps, is asking a developer to run a local web server (UltiDev Web Server Pro or XSP from Mono) acceptable?