It appears that the Sun ORB is marshalling a particular Abstract Interface
as a valuetype, in violation of the CORBA specification.

net.jini.core.entry.Entry is an empty interface that extends
java.io.Serializable.

% more net/jini/core/entry/Entry.java
package net.jini.core.entry;

 public abstract interface Entry extends java.io.Serializable {
 };
%

We have just started a valuetype of net.jini.core.entry.Entry[].
That is an array type, so we expect an IDL sequence in the stream.

0200: 34333632 30360000 7FFFFF03 FFFFFFFF 436206.. .......
0210: FFFFFE1C 00000032 524D493A 5B4C6E65 .......2RMI:[Lne
0220: 742E6A69 6E692E63 6F72652E 656E7472 t.jini.core.entr
0230: 792E456E 7472793B 3A303030 30303030 y.Entry;:0000000
0240: 30303030 30303030 30000000 000000000...

The next entry should be a CORBA long telling us the sequence length.
Note there are 2 bytes of padding.

                                 00000012 ....

There should be 12 entries in this sequence. Now,
net.jini.core.entry.Entry should be marshalled as an abstract
interface, which would mean we would expect a boolean next.

0250: 7FFFFF03 FFFFFFFF FFFFFDD4 00000056 ..............V

Hey! This is a value tag instead of a boolean! This is clearly wrong.
I will explain below...
Meanwhile, here is a bit more of the comm trace for context

0260: 524D493A 636F6D2E 77696E63 6F726E69 RMI:com.wincorni
0270: 78646F72 662E6461 6E63652E 64657669 xdorf.dance.devi
0280: 63652E65 6E747279 2E446576 69636554 ce.entry.DeviceT
0290: 7970653A 42393739 43304439 37413034 ype:B979C0D97A04
02A0: 38334546 3A303030 30304145 41334132 83EF:00000AEA3A2
02B0: 34344144 33000000 7FFFFF02 00000023 44AD3... ......#

net.jini.core.entry.Entry is an empty interface that extends
java.io.Serializable. According to the java-to-idl mapping, it maps
to an abstract interface in IDL. I have generated the IDL for it and
included it below.

% more net/jini/core/entry/Entry.idl
/**
* net/jini/core/entry/Entry.idl
* Generated by rmic -idl. Do not edit
* 22 February 2005 21:23:52 GMT
*/

#include "orb.idl"

#ifndef __net_jini_core_entry_Entry__
#define __net_jini_core_entry_Entry__


module net {
module jini {
module core {
module entry {

     abstract interface Entry {
     };

#pragma ID Entry "RMI:net.jini.core.entry.Entry:0000000000000000"

};
};
};
};

#endif
%

I have also pasted the relevant part of the CORBA spec that clarifies
this issue.

CORBA 2.3.1> 15.3.7 Abstract Interfaces
CORBA 2.3.1>
CORBA 2.3.1> Abstract interfaces are encoded as a union with a
CORBA 2.3.1> boolean discriminator. The union has an object
CORBA 2.3.1> reference (see Section 15.3.6, Object References,
CORBA 2.3.1> on page 15-28) if the discriminator is TRUE, and
CORBA 2.3.1> a value type (see Section 15.3.4, Value Types, on
CORBA 2.3.1> page 15-14) if the discriminator is FALSE. The
CORBA 2.3.1> encoding of value types marshaled as abstract
CORBA 2.3.1> interfaces always includes RepositoryId
CORBA 2.3.1> information. If there is no indication whether a
CORBA 2.3.1> nil abstract interface represents a nil object
CORBA 2.3.1> reference or a null valuetype, it shall be
CORBA 2.3.1> encoded as a null valuetype.


###@###.### 2005-03-11 13:32:03 GMT