Should Adobe port Premiere to Linux ?
429So, a specific feature request has been garnering a lot of attention recently on the Adobe forums, for porting Premiere to Linux. Let's take a look at the ins and outs.
The feature request: https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/36257581-yes-please-support-linux-this-would-be-a-huge-m
1 - The feature request
This feature request has reached more than 7000 votes, putting it on the very top of the various feature requests. It was mainly helped by the promotion of Jason Evangelho, a tech writer for Forbes whith a large Twitter following. It received so much help, in fact, that it triggered Adobe's spam filter, which resulted in the feature request being taken offline for a few hours.
What is basically asks for is porting Premiere to Linux.
2 - Adobe's reponse:
Adobe noticed the request, and they actually gave a constructive reply. Patrick palmer, the principal product manager for Editing at Adobe left a reponse indicating that, while the feature request was noted and taken into account, it would prompt a market analysis first, and then a decision to port would be made, or not. Palmer apparently has exeperience with porting stuff to Linux, as he says in his answer, and he underlines an important point porting to Linux is actually equivalent to porting to multiple OSes: you have to target and test for a few distributions, and that requires work.
3 - My thoughts
I have a few thoughts on the matter.
- First, the Linux ecosytem has never been more ready: with SteamPlay, Valve proved there was enough interest in the system to invest on Linux, and the distribution of software has never been easier, with flatpaks and Snaps. The advances in wine and its graphics pipeline also could enable av Wine port of Premiere, with less effort than would be required by a complete re-development of the software, to try and feel how the market is reacting.
- Second, Premiere, and the Adobe suite in general is considered the last missing link for prople to move to Linux. Whether that's true or not remains to be seen, but for people heavily invested in the Adobe platform, using something else is simply not possible: you have years, decades of archives, certain codecs, a particular workflow, and, most importantly, complete integration with the rest of the creative cloud suite.
And that brings me to my third point: porting Premiere by itself won't be enough. While it would be a great step to show that major publishers care about Linux, it would not be satisfactory to most Adobe users. The Adobe suite is an integrated whole: you can use what you made within any program inside another. So giving these users only premiere still requires them to go back to windows or Mac to create a transition with after effects, for example, or some graphics with photoshop, to integrate into their final video.
This extra step defeats the purpose: if you can't keep your workflow and use every program in the suite like your used to, you're just never going to make the switch.
In the end, porting Premiere only would be detrimental, I think: the feeling would be that the port is not enough, not complete, and, in the end, useless.
Porting only Premiere will not bring the hardcore video editing professionnals to Linux, who are the main focus of Adobe, and the main source of revenue for them., and that would probably result in a lack of revenue for Adobe, and a cancellation of plans for Linux versions.
This would set us back a few years or more, giving Linux the image of a "non sustainable OS".
Now I would very much Like Adobe to give us Linux users a full featured version of the Creative Cloud suite. I think the time is right, the platform is ready, and the missteps of Windows 10 and the extremely high prices of Macs are making Linux a very tempting alternative for professionnals, of the software barrier can be lifted. But in the end, I would very much prefer them to take their time, and do a full featured, well rounded Linux port, than porting Premiere in a hurry and ultimately damage the Linux image in the eyes of pros.
I don't have much of an interest in Premiere as of now, since it's not available on Linux, and doing my editing on another platform than the one I'm advocating just feels wrong. If it was available for Linux, I would probably still not use it: I prefer to give open source alternatives a fair chance, and unless Kdenlive suddenly dies or becomes unusable, I don't have any nedd to go look for anything elsewhere.
Follow me on Twitter : http://twitter.com/thelinuxEXP
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Also Watch my Experience with Manjaro Budgie on a Full AMD Linux Build:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZdj4Q08fBg
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