Event

Digital technology is a major contributor to environmental harm, from the 'tsunami' of e-waste filling landfills to the CO2 emissions on a par with aviation industry. Often overlooked is that software -- and software licenses -- play a crucial role.

Software and hardware are inextricably linked. A Free & Open Source Software license can disrupt the produce-use-dispose linear model of hardware consumption and enable the shift to a reduce-reuse-recycle circular model. Moving to a circular economy could reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally by up to 70%!

In this talk I provide an overview of the environmental harm driven by software and how FOSS is well-positioned to address the issues. I will link the inherent values that come with a Free & Open Source Software license to sustainable software design, and I will present the various ways that Free Software aligns with the Blue Angel ecolabel. Finally, I will provide an overview of the current sustainability goal of KDE and the work of the KDE Eco initiative. This includes publishing the KDE Eco handbook, setting up a measurement lab for FOSS developers (KEcoLab), squashing hundreds of efficiency bugs, among others.