The current landscape: 16+1 names, two pillars on the standards path
The Current Landscape · Status verified 2026-10-18 · rttp:// — IANA Provisional, CRI 27 · iqa:// — IANA Provisional, CRI 28 · Joint specification: draft-li-rttp-iqa-addressing-00
The last sixteen entries of this blog explained where each name came from — sixteen numbered pillars, AICENT-000 through AICENT-015, plus one unnumbered engine. A reader who finishes that series arrives at an obvious question: if there are seventeen components, why does nearly everything written here talk about two of them? This piece answers it. It is a status report, not a pitch.
What "frozen" means — and three things it does not mean
The narrative covering the full set of seventeen components is frozen. That is our own decision, stated here so nobody has to guess. It does not mean:
- Not cancelled. The components are documented, and the name series this blog just finished is the proof — sixteen numbered pillars and one engine, each with its source or a printed absence.
- Not shelved development. Nothing is being taken apart; the freeze applies to claims, not to code.
- Not "coming soon." We do not attach a date to the thaw, because attaching one would be the oldest trick in specification marketing.
What it does mean: no new normative claims are made for the other fifteen-plus-one components until the two live pillars have finished walking the standards path. A name with a published meaning and a frozen claim is an honest object; a name with a published meaning and an unfrozen claim would be a marketing asset, and this blog is not that.
Why these two, of all seventeen
Because they are the only two that touch the internet's own plumbing. rttp:// occupies a place in the URI scheme namespace — a shared, finite resource that exists precisely so that schemes do not collide. iqa:// sits beside it in the same registry. Everything else in the set — blood, body, eye, mirror, timing — lives in the application layer, where a name does not need IANA's permission and a specification does not need a datatracker number.
The split is therefore structural, not promotional: namespace claims go to the registries; application layers wait their turn. The two pillars were also chosen because they answer each other: rttp resolves WHERE and WHEN, iqa states WHETHER, and neither is useful alone.
Where the live part has actually got
Four checkable facts, each with a page a reader can open:
| Item | Status | Verifiable at |
|---|---|---|
rttp:// | Provisional, CRI 27 (2026-09-22) | iana.org/assignments/uri-schemes/prov/rttp |
iqa:// | Provisional, CRI 28 (2026-10-13) | iana.org/assignments/uri-schemes/prov/iqa |
| Joint specification | draft-li-rttp-iqa-addressing-00, IETF independent submission | datatracker.ietf.org |
| Self-positioning | Informational, experimental — stated in the abstract | the draft itself |
The fourth row is the one that keeps the other three honest. The specification says of itself that it is not an internet standard — two experimental addressing schemes published for the record. A project that registers its schemes and then describes them as experimental is not overselling; it is refusing to.
What this means for a reader of this blog
Two kinds of article now live side by side here, and they carry different weight. When we write about rttp and iqa, every claim can be checked line by line against a registered scheme and a numbered draft. When we write about the other components — as the name series did — the claim is only about what the name means and what the documentation says; those pieces carry no normative claim at all, and say so.
That distinction is the whole reason this piece exists. A reader is entitled to know which half of a blog is standing on a registry and which half is explaining vocabulary.
What we do not claim
- No status for the other fifteen-plus-one. No registration, no draft number, no review, no schedule.
- No adoption. Two provisional registrations are not deployments, and we do not describe them as if they were.
- No outcome. The joint specification is under review; we do not claim to know how it ends, and we do not write as though the answer were already in.
The honesty clause
Every status item above is verifiable at the page listed next to it, and the dates are the ones those pages show. The decision to freeze the wider narrative is ours alone — no standards body asked for it, and none has ruled on it. Where this piece states a fact it cites a page; where it states a choice, it says whose choice it is.
Next in this space: back to the specification, one line at a time.