A strange case of Java generic and inheritage parameter passing

I came a cross some strange Java code and I would like to share it here. Take a look few of classes I have here:

    // file: AFoo.java
    package atest.deng;
    public abstract class AFoo<T> {
    }
    
    // file: Foo.java
    package atest.deng;
    public class Foo extends AFoo<String> {
    }
    
    // file: FooProcessor.java
    package atest.deng;
    public class FooProcessor<T> {
        public void process(Class<AFoo<?>> cls) {
            System.out.println(cls);
        }
    }
    
    // file: FooMain.java
    package atest.deng;
    public class FooMain {
        public static void main(String[] args) {
            new FooProcessor().process(Foo.class);
        }
    }
    
    bash> mvn compile
    bash> [INFO] BUILD SUCCESS

I tried this with JDK6 + Maven and it compiles without problem. But try to remove the <T> part from FooProcessor and it will fail to compile!

    // file: FooProcessor.java
    package atest.deng;
    public class FooProcessor {
        public void process(Class<AFoo<?>> cls) {
            System.out.println(cls);
        }
    }
    
    bash> mvn clean compile
    bash> [ERROR] java-demo\src\main\java test\deng\FooMain.java:[4,26] process(java.lang.Class<atest.deng.AFoo<?>>) in atest.deng.FooProcessor cannot be applied to (java.lang.Class<atest.deng.Foo>)

Without the <T> the code won't compile, and yet we are not even using it in this case. How and why <T> affects the method parameters invocation?

Now, we can improve the FooProcessor in this way so that the presence of <T> doesn't have any affect.

    package atest.deng;
    public class FooProcessor {
        public void process(Class<? extends AFoo<?>> cls) {
            System.out.println(cls);
        }
    }

That's a more proper way to write the generic parameter anyway. But despite a better solution, the puzzle is that the original code compiled under the compiler, but only with the <T> presented, and yet it's not used. Wouldn't you consider this as a Java compiler bug?