The javax.net.SocketFactory abstract class is used to create sockets.
However SocketFactory has no API to permit an unconnected socket to be
created. An unconnected socket is necessary in order to avail of the new
java.net.Socket.connect method in Merlin. That new method permits a
connect timeout to be specified.

The LDAP provider in JNDI depends on SocketFactory and bug ID 4410856 cannot
be fixed until SocketFactory supports the ability to specify a timeout
value for a socket connect operation.

The provider would like to be able to do something like:

    javax.net.SocketFactory factory = javax.net.SocketFactory.getDefault();
    java.net.Socket socket = (java.net.Socket) factory.createSocket();
    socket.connect(endpoint, timeout);