[tor-dev] Standardizing the 'onion service' name

[Damian Johnson]

Hi all, teor suggested engaging the list with #25918 so here we go!
Ticket #25918 has a couple goals...

1. Provide a tracking ticket for the rename effort.
2. Come to a consensus on if we should move forward with "onion
service" or revert back to "hidden service". The limbo we've been in
for months is confusing for our users and we should standardize on a
name.

Here's the ticket...

========================================

A recent post on tor-dev@ just got me thinking about the roadblocks we
have for v2 deprecation. There's a couple I don't believe we're
following in trac so lets fix that.

For me the biggest is its name. Renaming takes work, and we attempted
to rename hidden services in v3 without investing the time to make it
happen. We should either fix that or revert to to the old name. To
move forward we need to...

Have OnionService aliases for controller commands, events, descriptor
fields, and anything else referencing 'HS' or 'HiddenService'.

Speaking of which, how do we plan to replace abbreviations? Having an
'OSFETCH' or 'OS_CREATED' event doesn't exactly have the same ring as
their HS counterparts. ;P

Adjust all our docs to be consistent about the name.

Renaming takes work. Lesson I learned from Nyx is that it works best
if you draw a line in the sand and stand by it. With Nyx, version 2.0
is called Nyx (you won't find any docs saying otherwise) and version
1.x is the legacy 'arm' project.

If I was in your shoes I'd opt for the same. Either prioritize the
aliases and be firm that v3 are 'Onion Services' or abort the rename.
Otherwise this will live in a confusing dual-named limbo land
indefinitely. ;P

Cheers! -Damian

PS. Stem and Nyx have stuck with the old name ("hidden services") and
will continue to do so until tor's standardized this.