A system and method for facilitating exposing a resource over a protocol is provided. The system includes a class factory that holds identifiers associated with determining which, if any, registered listener object creator should be employed to create a listener object. The listener object implements an abstract network protocol base class. The listener object is employed to abstract details of exposing a resource over a protocol and to provide a byte stream interface to communications occurring over the protocol, while removing protocol specific code from a server program. The method includes creating an instance of a listener object from a source of registered protocol handlers based on a request to expose a resource over a protocol and using a base class API to communicate over the protocol through the listener object.