To reduce the confusion this is a new RFE
based on much of the conversation in bug 4330419.

When @see or {@link} refers to a class that is neither
referenced in a declaration or import nor included on
the command line, but -link or -linkoffline points to it, 
the link is not generated.  That is, the text appears 
without any link.  The link should be generated.

The current behavior requires the developer to add an import 
statement to be added to the source code merely for the 
link to work.  This seems unnecessarily burdensome.
We have created an FAQ answer stating to comment the
import statement 

Example:

package p;

//import java.util.List;

/**
 * This inline link tag has no link when its import statement is missing
 * {@link java.util.List}.
 */
public class Test {
}

% javadoc -d docs -linkoffline http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/docs/api . p

The HTML comment looks like this -- notice there are no
<A HREF> links:

  This inline link tag has no link when its import statement is missing
  java.util.List

By uncommenting the "import java.util.List" statement, the link appears.
Note that starting with 1.4.0, wildcard import "import java.util.*" is
sufficient for the link to appear.

N/A

Evaluate for Hopper.
  xxxxx@xxxxx   2002-04-03

I am closing this as a duplicate of 4652655.  Please see public summary for more details.

  xxxxx@xxxxx   2002-04-15

I also think that the javadoc generator should behave the 
same as the javac compiler, explicitly knowing that 
java.lang.* should be available without requiring an 
import statement or a full package statement on the @link 
or @see tag. Example: @see System#currentTimeMillis should 
work implicitly. As well, the javadoc should know the well 
known location of the Sun provided Javadoc for the version 
of the javadoc executable, and should implicitly have a -
link statement to the Sun provided Javadoc for the 
standard classes unless an alternate -link or -linkoffline 
is provided. (i.e. first search the user provided -link 
and -linkoffline, and if still not found, try the implicit 
link included with the javadoc executable). Example: the 
javadoc from the JDK 1.3.1_02 distribution should 
implicitly have -link http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/docs/api

if @link is referenced to inner class, it will give an 
warning.
Ashok Desai