The spec of Lookup::defineClass throws LinkageError:
    LinkageError - if the class is malformed (ClassFormatError), cannot be verified (VerifyError), is already defined, or another linkage error occurs

However, JDK implementation never links the class.

Lookup::defineClass was added in JDK 9 as a public supported API to replace the calls to the protected ClassLoader::defineClass method which frameworks have been suppressing the language access check via setAccessible.

Framework libraries use this API to define a class that is generated dynamically (that cannot be found from the class loader) and soon after executes the newly created class.   We can hardly think of any use case that a class is dynamically generated and defined by calling `ClassLoader::defineClass` but never used and never linked (except a stress testing harness perhaps).

While ClassLoader::defineClass does not link a class, there are only a few frameworks migrating to use Lookup::defineClass.   I think the compatibility risk is not high if we fix the implementation to match the specification.   On the other hand, deferring linking might give more flexibility to the ordering of a set of inter-dependent classes to be defined.