Sun Software Library Help Center

Attributes are information pairs (name & value) that describe additional information for a particular entry. Public attributes are retrievable by all Sun Software Library users. Think of them as free-form fields that can hold any information. 

The value provides information about a specific named attribute. 

For example, if you want to include warranty information about your software, you can enter it as an attribute associated with that software: Name “Warranty”, Value “One Year”

Public attributes are always returned via the Sun Software Library Web Services API calls. However, they are displayed in the  Sun Software Library Web UI only when the display option is checked.