I’ve been wondering about this for a little while. Zenware (the term was coined in this article, btw) seems to consist of 1) programs that keep you from going online, and 2) writing programs.

Are there technical reasons for this? Most Zenware development efforts seem to involve just a couple people (OmmWriter had a larger staff, and I think you can tell– its minimalism is the kind shared by four-star boutique hotels in Helsinki or clubs in Tokyo designed by architecture-semioticians who felt Mies van der Rohe’s work was self-indulgent), and maybe text editors are just easier for small groups to create than music composition programs or CAD systems.

(Then again, it could be that writers are just whinier and more distraction-prone. As a writer, I support this theory.)

Or is it that we can still remember when writing was something you did on paper or at a typewriter, while it’s very clear that architecture is never going to go back to drawing?

Or does Zenware exist outside the world of writing and Internet blocking, and I just haven’t found it?