Summary

The sun.security.key.serial.interop private system property was introduced in JDK 1.5.0 to help interoperability issues with JDK 1.4 serialized DSA public keys. JDK 1.4 is long deprecated and this property can now be safely removed from the JDK code base.

Problem

The property in question defaults to false and is not used anywhere in the JDK code base. JDK 1.4 is past EOSL for some time now and this legacy property should be removed.

More details about introduction of original property can be found in bug 6232513 and corresponding CCC request.

Solution

Remove code in src/java.base/share/classes/sun/security/provider/DSAKeyFactory.java which deals with this legacy property. The code will default to the code path as if the property was "false" - which is what the default always was for this property.

Specification

No specification impact here. This legacy flag was a private system property. I can't find any documentation referring to this property.