Bonobo-activation allows you to browse the available CORBA servers on your system (running or not). It keeps track of the running servers so that if you ask for a server which is already running, you will not start it again but will reuse the already running one.
This module is heading towards planned deprecation. It will continue to be supported and API/ABI stable throughout the GNOME 2.x series, but we do not recommend using it in new applications unless you require functionality that has not already been moved elsewhere.