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Let's Make Energy-Efficient Software A Reality!

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by Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss


Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License



In this video, we invite FOSS developers to promote transparency in energy consumption and apply for the Blue Angel ecolabel for resource and energy-efficient software in three steps:

  • Measure: The first step requires you to learn how much energy your software consumes
  • Analyze: By making the energy consumption transparent you can drive down the amount of energy your software needs
  • Certify: Finally, the certification process will guarantee your users and third parties that the software complies with Blue Angel's stringent requirements

Software is immaterial, but it determines the energy consumption of hardware. The ICT sector is reported to contribute as much CO2 as the aviation industry, and the numbers continue to rise. Making software efficient is crucial.

KDE developers have always paid attention to the performance of the desktop environment and its applications. KDE Plasma runs smoothly even on hardware that is 5-10 years old! In the context of reducing CO2, resource and energy-efficiency is a major design goal.

Here we introduce the two projects of KDE Eco! The Free and open-source Energy Efficiency Project (FEEP), which is developing tools to improve energy efficiency in FOSS development. And the Blauer Engel For FOSS (BE4FOSS), which collects and spreads information related to FEEP and the Blue Angel ecolabel.

The Blue Angel is the official environmental label awarded by the German government -- and they now certify resource and energy-efficient software. It is the first ecolabel to link the FOSS values of transparency and user autonomy with sustainability.

Join us at KDE Eco and let's build energy-efficient Free Software together!


Announcing the KDE community's Distribution Outreach Program

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puzzle-cooperation-partnership
The people who package and distribute our software to the world are crucial to our user's experience. In keeping with our original KDE vision, we want to improve the working relationships between distributions and KDE developers. Not only do we want to foster professional friendship, but we also want to help our software shine in each distribution.


Share your love for Free Software

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#ilovefs banner

Love! Ah, that “serious mental disease” which make us reveal the best (and, sometimes, the worst) of our unconscious fantasies, longings, fears, defenses and internal images. And we love many things, sometimes in unthinkable and wacky ways. Some people love the melancholic sound of the cello, ice-cream, dancing, and reading, while others may even love insects, slowly pulling shoelaces out of sneakers, or that feeling after sneezing. It doesn't matter what, we love anything that makes our neurotransmitters dancing frantically and aimlessly like there is no tomorrow.


Announcing the Make Play Live Partner Network

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In the wake of the announcement of the first ever KDE powered tablet, quite a few interesting things are happening in the background. One of them is the formation of a professional Partner Network for devices such as the Vivaldi tablet. Let's look at this Partner Network in more detail.


KDE Enhances Mirroring Network

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KDE deployed a new mirror network this weekend. The mirror network is used to spread released software to users. In the old system, users had to select a mirror server manually. The new system selects a mirror automatically, based on the country where the user is located. If there is no mirror for that country, a mirror is selected based on continent. In either case, mirrors that are geographically closer are preferred. If there is an even better mirror—such as one in the same network as the user, it is preferred over all others. Here is the current list of the official KDE mirrors.


KDE.org Relaunched for Software Compilation 4.4

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The KDE web team is pleased to announce a major redesign of the KDE.org frontpage and buzz.kde.org, just in time for the pending release of our updated Workspace, Application and Development Platform compilation. The redesign is the result of many hours of work by artists, coders, writers and testers. Keep reading to gain some insight into the people and processes behind the retooling.


Growth Metrics for KDE Contributors

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In 1996 when KDE was first announced, it had only a handful of developers and the project could manage the source code without using a revision control system. More and more developers have begun to contribute to KDE over the years, and while there has been some attrition, the total number of active developers working on KDE has been steadily growing.

In order to get a pulse from the current contributor community, Simon St. James and Arthur Schiwon produced and plotted two basic metrics that show the continued growth within the KDE community.


Active KDE Contributers 1997-2009 (small version)

LinuxQuestions.org: KDE Desktop Environment of the Year 2008

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Congratulations everybody, we rock! KDE was again able to secure the precious LinuxQuestions.org desktop environment of the year award for 2008. The prize is a testament to the great and innovative work done on the KDE applications, desktop and in extension the KDE platform. Put another way, it is a testament to a community that based on excellence and technically sound solutions manages to be a beacon for innovation in the Free Software world.