KEcoLab in SoK24: Incorporating Energy-Consumption Measurements In The CI/CD Pipeline
Sustainability has been one of three goals at KDE over the past 2 years. One aspect of this goal is to measure the energy consumption of KDE software. To do this, it is necessary to access the lab in KDAB, Berlin, which can now be done remotely using KEcoLab.
KEcoLab (remote-eco-lab) is a KDE Eco project aimed at enabling remote energy consumption measurements for your software using Gitlab's CI/CD pipeline. By automating the measurement process and integrating with the OSCAR statistics tool, developers can make informed decisions about improving code efficiency and obtain software eco-certification with the Blue Angel. This project came to being as part of GSoC 2023 under the mentorship of Volker Krause, Benson Muite, Nicolas Fella and Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss. Karanjot Singh is its original developer.
One of the main aims of Season of KDE 2024 is to integrate KEcoLab into Okular's pipeline. Okular is KDE's popular multi-platform PDF reader and universal document viewer. In 2022, Okular was awarded the Blue Angel ecolabel, the first ever eco-certified computer program. You can learn more about KDE Eco here and the process of measuring energy consumption in the KDE Eco handbook.