There are static references from JAX-WS to java.rmi.Remote and java.rmi.RemoteException.

com.sun.xml.internal.ws.model.RuntimeModeler -> java.rmi.RemoteException (java.rmi)

com.sun.tools.internal.ws.processor.modeler.annotation.WebServiceAp -> java.rmi.Remote (java.rmi)
com.sun.tools.internal.ws.processor.modeler.annotation.WebServiceAp -> java.rmi.RemoteException (java.rmi)

Below are some references Yarda and Miroslav found. 
1. JSR-224, section 3.7: "Service speci���c exceptions are de���ned as all checked exceptions except java.rmi.RemoteException and its subclasses.

Conformance (java.lang.RuntimeExceptions and java.rmi.RemoteExceptions):

java.lang.RuntimeException and java.rmi.RemoteException and their subclasses MUST NOT be treated as service speci���c exceptions and MUST NOT be mapped to WSDL.���

2. JAX-WS spec

B.6 Changes Since Early Draft 3
��� Removed references to the RMI classes that JAX-RPC 1.1 used to denote remoteness, since their role
is now taken by annotations: java.rmi.Remote and java.rmi.RemoteException.

This issue is to re-examine if the dependency to RMI should be needed when the user code has a dependency on RMI and confirm if JAX-WS doesn't require RMI to present for applications that don't use RMI.