Why do we need SocketOptions.SO_BROADCAST to enable broadcast?

Question

If we want to broadcast information from a socket, we need to enable SocketOptions.SO_BROADCAST. However, I don\'t understand why that is necessary.

My

Answer 1

"Socket semantics require that an application set the SO_BROADCAST option on before attempting to send a datagram to a base or broadcast address. This protects the application from accidentally sending a datagram to many systems."

Source

Answer 2

In most cases these calls just call the same thing in the OS. This is likely to be a restriction of your OS, not Java.