Akademy 2021 - Towards Sustainable Computing
Channel: The KDE Community
Date: 2021-06-29

By Cornelius Schumacher
The way how we use computers has an impact on our environment. It has ecological, societal, and economic consequences. These consequences can be destructive, be it climate change or undermining people's autonomy. How can we move towards a sustainable way of using computers? How can we keep our planet and our society in a shape which provides healthy and desirable living conditions for us and future generations? We have answers. In this presentation we will discuss how KDE can contribute, and give an overview about two projects in this area, the FOSS Energy Efficiency Project, and the Blue Angel ecolabel.
The goal of the FOSS Energy Efficient Project (FEEP) is to make measuring energy consumption an integral part of our development process. Collecting data is the base for understanding and optimizing energy efficiency. We will discuss how measurements can be done, including the scientific research behind it and how it's done in practice, and have a look at measurements for Okular, KMail and Krita.
Energy efficiency measurements are one part of the criteria for the Blue Angel ecolabel. The Blue Angel is a successful label with a long tradition in many different product areas, issued by the German government. It recently has been extended to cover software as well, using criteria for energy efficiency as well as for user autonomy. We will discuss the current effort to get KDE applications certified with the label, and how we can scale that within our community and beyond.
The topic of sustainable computing becomes more and more important. Free and Open Source Software is uniquely positioned to make a siginificant contribution here. We have a strong background in KDE through our values and our technolofy. We have a great chance to make tangible achievements. Let's do this together in the KDE way.