Some feedback on this bug as I worked on it from the RH side.

* The OpenJDK Java code for elliptic curve support in SSL uses a list of curves 
based on the in-tree code used by Oracle.
* The actual curves supported by the system version of NSS used on most 
distributions is much shorter; it's basically three approved NIST curves. I 
assume this is for legal reasons which I won't try and go into further.
* This bug comes about because of the mismatch between the two. The Java code 
says it supports one set of curves, but in practice, the underlying provider 
code doesn't.
* This is true whether the combination of NSS with the PKCS11 provider is used 
(the Ubuntu setup above and what Red Hat were trying in its bug) or with the 
SunEC provider (support for this is coming in IcedTea 2.5.0).

The next set of releases (2.4.8, 2.5.0) will include a patch which fixes
the list of curves on the Java side to match the list used by system
NSS. This bug should then be properly resolved and the above workaround
will not be needed.

Looking to the future, the SunEC provider may be a better solution for
providing elliptic curve support - it matches what Oracle use in their
packages - but doing so with a system NSS will require 3.16.1, in order
to expose necessary APIs. Even then, it is necessary to link against a
static NSS library at build-time.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1006776

Title:
  openjdk-6-jdk ssl negotiation incompatibility

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