Hey KNIME community and @MarcelW,
I accidentally closed my last post here before adding a follow up to the problem I was having. In addition, I was curious about KNIME and anaconda moving forward in the future.
Here is the update:
Sorry for the late late response! You are correct that when I said
First I tried leaving the conda propagation node set to ‘base’ and seeing if it would install the base environment in my newly created one (py3_knime) which worked.
I was mistaken and this does not work. Once I set the conda propagation node to py3_knime and used a separate virtual environment everything worked wonderfully on my co-workers computer and all packages were properly installed.
Unfortunately, we just found out that Anaconda changed their terms of service last year so it is no longer free for commercial use in a company with more than 200 people. This means that I will likely have to remove anaconda from my computer and the work that I have done here to make these components as portable as possible is rendered useless (not your fault, Anaconda is being greedy).
Do you happen to know if KNIME has any plans in the future for supporting non conda based virtual environment propagation? It really sucks that they made this change because it makes your amazing open source software more difficult to use and contribute to now that they are trying to slap a $150 price tag on their end.
Overall, THANK YOU SO MUCH for all of your help it was really awesome not only how quickly you responded to me throughout this process but the level of interest you took in helping me to solve my problem.
Also, thank you in advance for any insights into KNIME and anaconda moving into the future.
Thanks for the reply! No luckily KNIME does not only support anaconda so you can just point it to python and install the necessary packages on your own but I guess what I’m really wondering here is if there are plans to include a regular python environment propagation type node instead of the one that just came out that is only for conda?
The portability of the conda environment propagation node is awesome and I am just hoping that eventually there might be something similar for plain python that would create the environment and install necessary packages that would work so that anyone who wants to use components that other people built that require python packages doesn’t need to purchase a conda license to be able to do so (at least to have the packages installed automatically for you instead of doing it manually). And I guess the same thing would apply for working with the KNIME server and not wanting to purchase anaconda licenses to be able to propagate.
I wasn’t really aware of this node. It’s kind of a “pip freeze” ?
I have to check it out to figure out more. It looks indeed very helpful
Thanks for your reply
maybe the great knime team members can open an internal ticket for that
Reading your original post, there might be a few assumptions in what you write that are worth discussing.
First, it is worth pointing out that “conda” is not the same as “anaconda”. The conda package manager is MIT-licensed and may be very effectively used independently of the anaconda Python distribution (which has its own license terms). If you have not heard about it before, many, many people use conda independently of anaconda. That does not diminish at all how awesome and super-valuable the anaconda distribution itself is but I am hoping to highlight there is more to conda as a tool. KNIME’s Conda Environment Propagation node is an integration with the conda tool. Equating “conda” with “anaconda” is a common misconception but I hope sharing this empowers you to do yet more with conda environments because conda really does solve problems that other virtual env tools do not.
Second, if you genuinely benefit from using the anaconda Python distribution at your company of >200 people, it might be worth having a conversation with the folks at Anaconda (the company that employs human beings to produce and maintain cross-compatible binary packages in the anaconda distribution) to investigate your options under their license. If you believe using the anaconda distribution at your company is genuinely valuable (saves you time, reduces complexity, makes you smile, whatever) then it sounds worth at least a conversation about that value.
I hope this is encouraging both that conda is more awesome than might have been obvious at first and that your effort has not been rendered useless after all. Also, this should not be construed as a pitch to go buy anything from any company… though I do kinda wish I had a nickel for every time I encouraged someone to go use the best tool for their particular job/task.
Thank you so much for your reply! I cannot believe I’ve been using anaconda for several years now and I did not understand that conda was actually a separate package manager . You just made my day!! I would definitely send you a nickel for the help if I could!
. You just made my day!! I would definitely send you a nickel for the help if I could!