Philip Withnall from Endless at the GUADEC 2020 conference with to introduce an accounting system for the environmental impact of GNOME application development. For each application, it is proposed to display a parameter called 'Carbon Cost', which shows the approximate level of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere and allows developers to assess how their work impacts global warming.
According to the presenter, despite the fact that free software is provided at no cost, it has an indirect price — the environmental impact of its development. For example, the project’s server infrastructure, continuous integration servers, the work of the non-profit GNOME Foundation, and the hosting of developer conferences require electricity and materials, the production processes of which lead to carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. Applications also consume energy on user systems, which indirectly affects the environment.
The introduction of a new metric will show the serious commitment of the GNOME project to environmental preservation. Among the factors for calculating this metric are mentioned application runtime, CPU load, storage and network usage, and the intensity of testing in the continuous integration system. To assess the load, it is proposed to use sysprof, the accounting mechanisms of systemd, and powertop, the data from which could be converted into an equivalent carbon dioxide emission. For example, 1 hour of intensive CPU load can be estimated at approximately 6 grams (assuming a power consumption increase of 20 watts), and 1 GB of data downloaded over the network as 17 grams of CO2e. As for the continuous integration systems, the build of Glib is estimated at 48 kilograms of CO2e per year (for comparison, one person produces 4.1 tons of CO2e per year).
To reduce the "Carbon Cost", developers are encouraged to implement optimizations such as caching, improving code efficiency, decreasing network load, and utilizing pre-defined images in the continuous integration system, thus contributing to the fight against global warming. For instance, using ready-made Docker images in the continuous integration system can reduce the metric value by four times.
It is proposed to calculate the cumulative "Carbon Cost" for each significant release, summing the metrics of all applications, as well as the expenses for the GNOME project, the GNOME Foundation, hackfests, and the continuous integration system. This metric will allow for development with an awareness of environmental impacts, tracking dynamics, and making necessary optimizations.
Source: opennet.ru
