A talk at the Linux App Summit about software sustainability – and the environmental impact of power-hungry code – was a shocking wake-up call that's too important to ignore. Please give a warm welcome to the creator of that talk, KDE's Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss.
In this episode of Linux For Everyone, we discuss Joseph's vital work with KDE Eco, and the path the project is forging to create a culture of software sustainability and inspire more power-efficient software. Our conversation might dramatically change how you think about the apps you use, and the potentially devastating ecological footprint of the software installed on millions -- if not billions -- of devices.
Joseph and I both hope this episode inspires more conversation and more awareness.To that end, here is a long list of resources and links to help you better understand the situation, and to get directly involved!
KDE Eco (https://eco.kde.org/)
The KDE Eco Handbook (https://eco.kde.org/handbook/)
KDE Eco: Get Involved (https://eco.kde.org/get-involved/) — Links to Matrix channel, mailing list, and repositories.
The Green Metrics developer tool (https://github.com/green-coding-berlin/green-metrics-tool)
Free and Open Source Energy Efficiency Project (FEEP) Repo (https://invent.kde.org/teams/eco/feep)
The Hidden Life Of An Amazon User: Article (https://www.janavirgin.com/AMZ/)
The Hidden Life Of An Amazon User: Interactive Project (https://www.janavirgin.com/AMZ/amazon.html)
Report: Carbon footprint of unwanted data-use by smartphones (https://groenlinks.nl/sites/groenlinks/files/2021-09/CE_Delft_210166_Carbon_footprint_unwanted_data-use_smartphones.pdf)
"Sustainable Programming" online course (https://open.hpi.de/courses/cleanit2021/items/5DHsS3tJsXAqfUE4q4F82Z) — (see 04:20 (https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/linux-for-everyone/episode-58-power-up-and-4LRUDk5gEos/#260)–06:10 (https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/linux-for-everyone/episode-58-power-up-and-4LRUDk5gEos/#370) to go from a one CPU-second reduction to 95 thousand megawatt hours by scaling up). Choice quote: "Often, it is a quite manageable set of decisions which lead to significant differences in power consumption"
"Post Collapse Computing" Parts 1-4 by Tobias Bernard: (https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2022/08/24/post-collapse-computing-1/) — (A 4-part series)
GUADEC 2020: Carbon emissions by Philip Withnall (https://tecnocode.co.uk/2020/09/14/guadec-2020/)
The German Environment Agency report comparing energy consumption of software products (https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/publikationen/entwicklung-anwendung-von-bewertungsgrundlagen-fuer) — English summary on pages 22-27
