Characterizing Energy-Aware Software Projects: Are They Different?

Abstract

The improvement in battery technology for battery-driven devices is insignificant compared to their computing ability. In spite of the overwhelming advances in processing ability, adoption of sophisticated applications is hindered bythe fear of shorter battery life. This is one of the several reasons software developers are becoming conscious of writing energy efficient code.Research has been conducted to model software energyconsumption, to reduce energy drains, and to understanddevelopers expertise on energy efficiency. In this paper,however, we investigate the nature of energy-aware softwareprojects. We observed that projects concerned with energyissues are larger and more popular than the projects thatdo not address energy consumption. Energy related codechanges are larger than others (e.g., bug fixes). In addition,our initial results suggest that energy efficiency is mostlyaddressed on certain platforms and applications.