Goals/Sustainable Software

Software has an impact on our future. It has an affect on energy and resource usage. KDE can deliver software which does this in a way which preserves environment and society for us and future generations. KDE can deliver Sustainable Software.

This goal is about promoting sustainable software in KDE by (i) aligning existing activities, (ii) highlighting where our software is already sustainably designed, (iii) stimulating actions to increase sustainability, and (iv) creating standards/tools to quantify software sustainability.

Resources:

• Sustainable Software Goal (repository): https://invent.kde.org/teams/eco/sustainable-software-goal/
• Blog post: "What is Sustainable Software, After All?"

What is happening?

There already are some activities in the context of the KDE Eco umbrella project. We measure energy efficiency of software in the FOSS Energy Efficiency Project (FEEP) and the KEcoLab project. We got the Blue Angel eco certification for Okular. We help others to also meet criteria for sustainable software with the Blauer Engel For FOSS (BE4FOSS) project and the publication of the handbook "Applying The Blue Angel Criteria To Free Software". We have a funded project "Opt Green" which is focused on reducing e-waste by extending the lifespan of hardware with lightweight Free Software.

To add ideas or see how some of the work is progressing have a look at the GitLab board.

Results

Here are some of the results we achieved as part of the activities around the goals:

• Tooling
  • KEcoLab
  • KdeEcoTest
• Presentations
  • Bits & Bäume 2022
  • Linux App Summit 2022
  • FOSDEM 2023
  • CCC 2023
  • Akademy 2023
    • Measuring energy consumption of software
    • Fun with Charts: Green Energy in System Monitor
  • Akademy 2024
    • Getting Them Early: Teaching Pupils About The Environmental Benefits Of FOSS
    • Opt In? Opt Out? Opt Green! KDE Eco's New Sustainability Initiative
  • conf.kde.in 2024
    • Emulation Tools for Sustainable Software Development: Simulating Real-World Usage Scenarios at KDE-Eco
    • A Layman's Guide to Sustainability with Free Software
  • For a full list of presentations (e.g., Qt World Summit, SFSCon, Fedora Nest, CCCamp23), see the community wiki for years 2022-2024.
• Summer of Code and Season of KDE projects
  • SoK 2022
    • Preparing Standard Usage Scenarios for Energy Consumption Measurements
  • SoK 2023
    • Improve "KDE Eco Test" emulation tool
    • Measurement of energy consumption with Selenium
    • Preparation of KDE apps for Blue Angel eco-certification
  • GSoc 2023
    • Measuring Energy Consumption Using Remote Lab
  • SoK 2024
    • Improving KdeEcoTest's funcionalities and compatibility
    • Testing and development of KEcoLab
    • Selenium testing and user videos
    • Adding Windows support for KdeEcoTest
    • Sustainability 1: Testing and Developement of KEcoLab
• Funded projects
  • BE4FOSS
  • Opt Green
• Blue Angel
  • Participation in revising the criteria
  • Handbook: Applying The Blue Angel Criteria To Free Software
• Awareness
  • Eco Tab on Okular's web site
  • Article in SZ: "Programmieren geht auch umweltfreundlich"
  • "Sustainable by Design" conference in German parliament
  • Article in taz: Blauer Engel für Software
  • Blue Angel Award Ceremony At EnviroInfo Conference: Okular Officially Receives Eco-Label, First Ever For Software Product
  • Article in Branch Magazine: Care for life, care for the chips: the future is re-used, recycled and permacomputing
  • Article in The Providence Journal: These computers almost went to a landfill. Teens are reviving them for free. Here's how.
  • Curated list of resources about sustainable software ("Awesome Sustainable Software")
• Stands & Workshops
  • Umweltfestival 2024
  • Lange Nacht der Wissenschaft 2024
  • "Bring It Back To Life" workshop, part of Invisible Networks exhibit
  • 10. Akademie der Spiele
• Peer-Reviewed Publications
  • Development and evaluation of a reference measurement model for assessing the resource and energy efficiency of software products and components—Green Software Measurement Model (GSMM) (Future Generation Computer Systems, 2024)

Join us

The topic of sustainable software is relevant for all KDE applications and developers. We would be more than happy if you join us to contribute to this goal. There are a lot of small things we all can do to make progress.

Join us on the [email protected] mailing list and the KDE Eco chat on Matrix. Ask your questions and post your ideas there.

Also feel free to contact the goal champion Cornelius Schumacher <[email protected]>, if you would like to get started without posting to the public channels right away.

Contact

General

• KDE Eco room (Matrix): https://webchat.kde.org/#/#kde-eco:kde.org
• KDE Eco discussion (mailing list): https://mail.kde.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kde-eco-discuss
• KDE Eco announcement (mailing list): https://mail.kde.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kde-eco-announce

Repositories

• KDE Eco Teams (GitLab): https://invent.kde.org/teams/eco

Projects

• KEcoLab Measurement Lab Development (Matrix): https://webchat.kde.org/#/#kde-eco-dev:kde.org
• KdeEcoTest (Matrix): https://webchat.kde.org/#/#kdeecotest:kde.org
• SoK Selenium Project (Matrix): https://matrix.to/#/!uSFzhmZoARbdWMuUYy:matrix.org?via=kde.org&via=matrix.org&via=gitter.im
• See also Automation & Systematization Goal for Selenium discussions (Matrix): https://webchat.kde.org/#/#kde-institutional-memory:kde.org

Monthly Online Meetup (2nd Wednesday Of Month, 19:00 CET/CEST)

• Meeting link (BigBlueButton): https://meet.kde.org/b/jos-l59-2i1-9yt
• Pad to collect discussion topics (Collaborate): https://collaborate.kde.org/s/cactBt4frrfTjbW
• Minutes of recent meetups: https://invent.kde.org/teams/eco/opt-green/-/tree/master/community-meetups
• Archive of past meetups: https://invent.kde.org/teams/eco/be4foss/-/tree/master/community-meetups