Richard Fontana

{{Infobox person

| name = Richard Fontana

| birth_place = {{Flagicon|USA}} Brooklyn, NY, U.S.

| occupation = Lawyer, Red Hat

| image=2020-02-03 CopyleftConf 09 (cropped).jpg

}}

Richard Fontana is a lawyer in the United States who is particularly known for his work in the area of open source and free software. Fontana works at Red Hat. Before Red Hat he was counsel at the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC).{{cite web

| author-link = Red Hat

| title = Red Hat Announces Key New Appointments to its Open Source Licensing & Intellectual Property Law Team

| publisher = Red Hat, inc.

| date= 2008-03-05

| url = http://www.redhat.com/about/news/prarchive/2008/appts.html

| format = PDF

| accessdate = 2008-06-14 }} In 2012 Fontana began drafting copyleft-next, a modification of the GNU General Public License, version 3 (GPLv3).{{cite web|url=https://gitorious.org/copyleft-next/|title=copyleft-next|date=July 9, 2012|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121217110347/https://gitorious.org/copyleft-next|archivedate=December 17, 2012}}{{cite web|url=http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2012/07/small-copyleftnext-open-source-software-license-project-attracts-big-interest.php|title=

Small Copyleft.next Open Source Software License Project Attracts Big Interest|date=July 11, 2012}}{{cite web|url=https://lwn.net/Articles/505589/|title=The next GPL: Why it's being shaped on GitHub (InfoWorld)|date=July 6, 2012}}

While at SFLC, Fontana was one of the three principal authors, along with Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen, of the GPLv3, the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3 (LGPLv3), and the GNU Affero General Public License.{{cite web

|url = http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS8853808815.html

|archive-url = https://archive.today/20130128032432/http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS8853808815.html

|url-status = dead

|archive-date = 2013-01-28

|title = GPLv3 authors comment on final draft

|accessdate = 2008-03-04

}}{{cite web |url= http://www.linux.com/articles/56554

|title= The GPLv3 process: Public consultation and private drafting |accessdate=2008-03-04}} He is currently a member-elected director of the Open Source Initiative.[http://opensource.org/node/674 OSI Welcomes Member-Elected Director], OSI

Fontana attended Hunter College High School in New York City.Hunter College High School#Alumni He received a bachelor's degree in history from Wesleyan University, a master's degree in computer science from Yale University, and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School.{{cite web|url=https://www.softwarefreedom.org/summit/2007/cle-bios.pdf|title=Legal Summit for Software Freedom – October 12, 2007 – Columbia Law School |accessdate=2015-04-08}}