Resource and energy efficiency of KDE applications

[Cornelius Schumacher]

There has been some work underway for some time to look at resource and 
energy efficiency of KDE applications. I would like to give some more 
insight into what is happening there and invite you to join, where this 
is interesting for you.

The first part is FEEP, the FOSS energy efficiency project[1]. The goal 
of the project is to measure energy consumption of Free Software 
applications, starting with some KDE applications. There is a 
methodology developed by the Umwelt-Campus Birkenfeld[2], which provides 
a standardized way to get data about energy and other resource usage of 
desktop applications. This is a good starting point.

The impact of information technology on the overall usage of electricity 
and other resources is significant. Getting awareness and some actual 
data will help us to find ways how we can contribute to a responsible 
and sustainable usage of resources.

Energy efficiency is one aspect of sustainability, but there are more. 
Resource usage for manufacturing devices and how long they can be used 
is another one. And a big part also is user autonomy, so that people can 
decide how they use software.

Since last year there is a set of criteria for resource and 
energy-efficient software products as part of the German ecolabel Blue 
Angel[3]. They try to capture these aspects in the form of a list of 
requirements, covering energy-efficiency, potential hardware operating 
life, and user autonomy.

KDE is in a very good position to fulfill these requirements, because 
our vision and values are very much in line with the goals which are 
behind these requirements. Transparency, privacy, freedom, giving people 
control, responsible usage of resources, this is all very much ingrained 
in our community.

So we are documenting how KDE applications meet the criteria for 
resource and energy-efficient software products[4], and we are trying to 
get the official certification of the Blue Angel by applying for the 
label through KDE e.V.

I gave a presentation at this year's Akademy with the title "Towards 
sustainable computing" which goes into more detail. You can find the 
recording in KDE's YouTube channel[5].

There is a lot which we can do in this area to show how KDE already 
contributes to sustainable computing and improve what we are doing. So 
if you are interested in this topic and would like to do something there 
are many opportunities. These often are small things which don't take 
too much time. Every contribution counts. Some examples are:

* Defining typical usage scenarios which can be used as a base for 
measuring energy efficiency of applications
* Automating usage scenarios so measurements can be done in an automated 
and repeatable way
* Evaluation of energy measurements to find out what impacts energy 
efficiency and how this can be optimized
* Documentation of the user autonomy aspects, for example making our 
commitments to transparency and privacy visible on websites or user manuals

We have a mailing list[6] and a Matrix channel[7] to talk about these 
topics. You are very welcome to join us there.

We have the chance to make a difference here. Let's do it :-).


[1]: https://invent.kde.org/cschumac/feep
[2]: 
https://www.umwelt-campus.de/en/research/projekte/green-software-engineering/projects/ufoplan-ssd-2015
[3]: 
https://www.blauer-engel.de/en/products/electric-devices/resources-and-energy-efficient-software-products
[4]: https://invent.kde.org/cschumac/blue-angel-application
[5]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCFWTtSMbMs&t=13067s
[6]: https://mail.kde.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/energy-efficiency
[7]: https://webchat.kde.org/#/room/#energy-efficiency:kde.org

-- 
Cornelius Schumacher <schumacher at kde.org>