IT DOES MEAN.....
....well it simply means for as long as I am actively devloping a product, I shall continue to provide customers who have purchased earlier versions of that exact product with all updates and upgrades free of charge.

IT DOES NOT MEAN..... .
....That for the rest of my life I will make all my Joomla components compatible with all future Joomla version no matter what Joomla looks like and no matter what kind of work is involved! That would be plain stupid! Those people who thought this is what it meant, I am sorry for - cause you obviously didnt understand.

As a developer I know components will need to be rewritten to work with future Joomla versions. Also as my portfolio of new components and new customers grow I have less and less time to support and update older components (when features that they build upon within Joomla are even removed from Joomla core!!).

In every industry, in every business things are withdrawn. Unfortunatly things move so fast in Joomla-land that the lifecycle is so short.