Applet (yes, applet) class files not found

[gu...@edamame.stinky.com]

I've written a webapp containing an applet. Although the HTML pages
are found OK, the applet fails to load. The server returns a 404 Not
Found when I request my ShopperApplet.class. 

I'm deploying my webapp as a WAR file inside TOMCAT_HOME/webapps, with
no line in server.xml.  ShopperApplet.class is in the WAR file (I
double-checked), but oddly, it is *not* present in the unpacked
directory (TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/shoppers/).  The rest of the files
(html, WEB-INF/lib/*.jar, etc) are there, but neither of the applet
.class files are.

TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/shoppers.war
	contains index.html, ShopperApplet.class
TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/shoppers/index.html
TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/shoppers/ShopperApplet.class <<< MISSING

I'm wondering if this is some misguided attempt to keep the unpacked
webapp clean -- trying to make sure that class files are only
present in the WEB-INF/classes directory, or some such.

I just discovered: When I add a line to the server.xml config file

 <Context path="/shoppers" docBase="webapps/shoppers" ... >

everything works fine, and it unpacks the applet class files. But I'd
rather use the implicit WAR file system, since I'll be deploying this
app to several servers and want to keep install configuration issues
to a minimum.

 - Alex

P.S. Is there an official place I can report this as a bug, while
Bugzilla is down? I'd like to feel sure it's not going to fall between
the cracks.