Our first goal is to create a new, free, open-source software package to allow fans to host their own robust, full-featured archives, which can support even an archive containing hundreds of thousands of stories and which has the social networking features to enable fans to connect to one another through their work.
Our second goal is to use this software to provide a noncommercial and nonprofit central hosting place for fanfic and other transformative fanworks, where these can be sheltered by the advocacy of the OTW and take advantage of the OTW’s work in articulating the case for the legality and social value of these works. Unlike other archives, the Archive of Our Own isn’t run by individuals whose interest in fandom may wax and wane, but by a nonprofit organization run by an elected rotating board of committed fans. We hope that this will lead to more permanence and stability than some other archives or services.