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I agree, specifically this part: > "In 2020 the German Environment Agency extended the award criteria to include software products, which was the first in the
by RobertMiller 5y ago
I agree, specifically this part:
> "In 2020 the German Environment Agency extended the award criteria to include software products, which was the first in the world of environmental certifications to link transparency and user autonomy with sustainability. In order to obtain the ecolabel, a software product must demonstrate that it meets a list of stringent requirements considered critical for the environment over the product’s life cycle. These include providing transparency in the energy consumption when using the software – for example, in the case of Okular, while reading or annotating a PDF – and the ability to run the application on hardware at least five years old. The Blue Angel award criteria also include a list of user autonomy requirements which reduce the environmental impact of software."
Okular is great and I'm a big fan of Free software generally, but the extension of this environmentalism award to encompass Free software values seems like a well-intentioned stretch and that 'runs on 5 year old hardware' thing is a joke. I'm hard pressed to think of any software that can't run on a computer from 2017. They might as well give the certification to the rest of all the Linux desktop software too. That won't happen I'm sure; Okular got it because KDE has organized an effort to get such certifications (https://eco.kde.org/#be4foss https://eco.kde.org/#be4foss). Free software authors/groups that don't have the time/energy to seek the certification doubtlessly won't receive it.
So Okular has this certification and Envice does not. Does this actually tell you anything about which of the two is more ecological? I don't think so, it isn't safe to assume just from this certification that Okular is more efficient than Envice. But if an ecological certification isn't useful for such product comparisons, then what exactly is it for?
- ognarb 5y agoSome KDE developers indeed put a lot of time to get the certification, but this is not only for bureaucratic reasons. A lot of measurements needed to be done[1], this leads to various patches to improve the energy efficiency of some parts of the code. Also Be4FOSS is not only for KDE, but can also benefices other projects [2] [1]: https://invent.kde.org/teams/eco/blue-angel-application/-/blob/master/applications/okular/de-uz-215-eng-annex-3-okular-idle.pdf https://invent.kde.org/teams/eco/blue-angel-application/-/bl... [2]: https://invent.kde.org/teams/eco/be4foss https://invent.kde.org/teams/eco/be4foss
- bogwog 5y agoWhat are you complaining about? That people need to apply for the certification rather than having it be an automated process?