Data for the future - the kopal project -- The German project kopal develops a cooperative used long-term digital archive. The archival system of kopal could be used by different clients, just like a bank account. It is hosted by an experienced service provider and based on software by IBM. Its interfaces are open defined in a way, that it is possible to use open software and standard object formats to connect to them. As a result of the project an open archiving and exchange format for digital objects was specified, called Universal Object format. There is also an open source software library called koLibRI to build up objects, generate technical metadata and manage the communication with the OAIS-compliant system. Migration and emulation will be supported, but especially migration is an essential part of koLibRI and the concept of technical metadata within the data management. The archival system is ready to be used by the project partners and ca. 10 TB of data will be ingested until the end of the year 2006.