> What does end of service mean?  No further maintenance or it's off
> support?

The IBM term "End of Service" means that Free "Defect Support" as described
in the product license is terminated, and that no further "fixes" will be
made to the product at IBM expense.

Note that this does *not* mean that the product is unsupported, nor does it
mean that problems and defects will not be fixed.  It simply means that
defects will not be corrected and APARs will not be issued unless the
reporter (and/or) the person desiring the fix is willing to pay for the cost
of the investigation and the issuing/testing of the fix ... If many
customers clamour for support, the service may be extended indefinitely.  If
large customers with general support contracts are using the product, it may
get APARs and fixes issued against it that make it appear to still be "In
Service" for may years (ie, OS/2 2.1 went "Out of Service" with the release
of OS/2 Warp 3.0, however, APARs and fixes are still being issued because
there are still lots of IBM customers using it - note that it is now
actually out of service with the last fixpack issued about 8 months ago).

That is, more specifically, "End of Service" for a product for which a
replacement (or upgrade) version/product is announced, is the point in time
at which APAR and FIXES against the latest version of the product will no
longer *automatically* be made available/issued against the previous out of
service versions.  The corrections will still be applied on a you-want
you-pay you-get basis, however.

During the "overlap" period between the release of a new product and the
"End of Service" of the old, all APARs and fixes against either product are
automatically applied/issued against the other.  Once End of Service is
reached, all such automatic updating ceases.