opensafely / opensafely/documentation

Revisit instructions to install Anaconda

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Dominant language
Python
Stars
48
Forks
10
Avg merge
2d 19h
Merged PRs (30d)
17

Description

Anaconda's licensing has changed so it's no longer available for commercial use:
https://www.anaconda.com/blog/anaconda-commercial-edition-faq

There is a free tier for academics, students and hobbyists, which many of our users probably fall into.

However, given that some might not, we may want to revisit the Windows installation instructions that tell you to download Anaconda as the first step and at least provide an alternative.

Python on windows (confirmed with 3.9) comes with pip and venv, so instructions for using venv and installing opensafely without Anaconda are quite straightforward.

c:> py -m venv my-venv
c:> my-venv\Scripts\activate
(my-venv) c:> pip install opensafely

Somewhat related to #485

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the Windows installation instructions in the getting-started guide, especially step 3, and compare them with the linked Python venv guidance. Update the documentation to provide a non-Anaconda installation path and account for Anaconda's licensing change; done means users can install OpenSAFELY on Windows without relying on Anaconda.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
anaconda, python
Domain
documentation
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
42/100

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