The IAU set up the SOFA initiative at the 1994 General Assembly, to promulgate an authoritative set of fundamental-astronomy constants and algorithms. At the subsequent General Assembly, in 1997, the appointment of a Reviewing Board and the selection of a site for the SOFA Center (the outlet for SOFA products) were announced. The time since then has been spent developing the specifications for a basic collection of fundamental-astronomy algorithms. Progress has been slow, for a number of reasons: the task is difficult and requires great circumspection; a substantial toolkit of support routines must be adopted or developed before work on the astronomy routines themselves can begin; and it takes time for a geographically dispersed committee to reach a consensus on matters that involve value judgements, such as programming style. However, despite these formidable difficulties, significant progress has been made. A library of 52 vector/matrix routines has been developed, supporting a set of 25 astronomy algorithms. The Reviewing Board is about to start validating these algorithms, at which point they can be released through the SOFA Center.