# RFC: Proposal for estimating unique Julia clients without tracking

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/rfc-proposal-for-estimating-unique-julia-clients-without-tracking/138027>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** statistics, pkg, cryptography, rfc\
**Created:** [July 9, 2026, 9:07am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/rfc-proposal-for-estimating-unique-julia-clients-without-tracking/138027 "2026-07-09T09:07:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 59

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**Author:** ![goerz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/goerz/32/3269_2.png) [@goerz](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/goerz)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2026, 4:33am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/rfc-proposal-for-estimating-unique-julia-clients-without-tracking/138027/59 "2026-08-09T04:33:50Z")

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> [@Antipath1](#):
>
> It is deeply concerning that these direct personal insults, aggressive bad-faith characterizations, and plain violations of any standard of civil interpersonal communication have received zero intervention or moderation from project leadership.

I don’t see bad faith, in the sense that @jakobnissen would be _misrepresenting_ the views of a certain FOSS sub-culture. He is not ascribing to this sub-culture positions they do not hold. What he is doing is characterizing those positions in somewhat strong language as “insane” and “antisocial” – in his opinion (which I’d be inclined to share to some extent, even if not to the fullest extent).

> [@Antipath1](#):
>
> users are “beyond entitled” if they expect privacy while consuming those resources.

There is nothing wrong with the expectation of privacy… which is what this proposal is trying to provide. That is not the same as insisting on _absolute_ privacy (whatever that can mean in any coherent sense). As with most issues, any position that is _absolute_ is almost guaranteed to be deeply misguided, and likely (hopefully) held by a fringe but sometimes very vocal minority. I find it useful to call out such misguided positions, so as not to let them override what is a strong consensus (based on “likes” in this thread) on a more nuanced position. Maybe the language to do that here was a bit stronger than absolutely necessary, but, as far as

> [@Antipath1](#):
>
> so toxic that dissenting users can no longer remain

goes: Even the strongly worded characterization of these dissenting user’s positions seems like a far cry from “toxic” to me. This is not a situation where a group of dissenters is hounded or harassed, but merely is receiving some strong pushback on particular positions, directly relevant to the topic in this thread. I would recall (and personally endorse)

> [@jakobnissen](#):
>
> Of course you are entitled to your opinion. And I don’t even think Julia would be better off if people with these beliefs disappeared - Julia is better when there are all kinds of people, including people with stupid political and social ideas.

which is a direct invitation to remain, even if it means receiving pushback on certain ideas in threads such as this. I would hope that there is plenty of common ground in other areas and threads on this site that such a disagreement should not reasonably drive anyone away.

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