title: Service References in OSGi
body: <p>Once an instance of an OSGi service is retrieved from the bundle context does it become invalidated when the service is stopped? </p>
  
  <p>My initial tests show that the service instance can be used even after the service bundle is stopped, which contradicts my understanding of the dynamic nature of OSGi.</p>
  
  <p>I suppose this boils down to what retrieving a service (via ServiceTracker) from another bundle in the OSGi container actually does, does it create a new instance or does it give you a pointer to the instance that is registered in the container?</p>
  
  <p>Are there any dangers in using the service instance after the service has been stopped?</p>