javac accepts the following program if both classes are compiled from source, but rejects it if B is compiled from source and A is on the classpath. I expected the two cases to be consistent.

I reproduced with 9-ea+165, but it affects all versions I tried back to 1.6.0-b105.

=== A.java
import java.util.Map;
abstract class A {
  interface I<X extends String> {}
  abstract void f(Map<String, I<?>> i);
}
=== B.java
import java.util.Map;
public class B {
  void f(A a, Map<String, A.I<? extends String>> x) {
    a.f(x);
  }
}
===

$ javac -sourcepath : A.java B.java
... OK
$ javac -sourcepath : B.java
B.java:4: error: incompatible types: Map<String,I<? extends String>> cannot be converted to Map<String,I<?>>
    a.f(x);
        ^