Quoting Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org>:
This probably varies slightly from country to country, but at least in the USA, copyright is not automatically transferred like this. If the work is done "for hire", the employer is the original copyright holder. If a written agreement assigning the specific copyright(s) exists, it is binding. A written but purportedly implied agreement is insufficient, as are verbal or non-specific agreements. In the absence of details, it is hard to say which applies in this case; but unless the employer is asking in the context of an employee's paid work, a copyright assignment is the safe bet.
There is no written license assignment agreement, signed or otherwise. It seems likely then that we'd need individual agreement from all past contributors to change the license. I'm not opposed to a preferred but mostly equivalent license, but honestly Horde doesn't have the manpower to go around doing this. If the Debian packagers want a different license, I'd be fine with them putting together a list of people who need to sign off on it. Then Horde could take it from there, assuming everyone on the Horde side agrees.
I suppose another question is, what level of contribution gives someone enough copyright say to need to approve a license change? Fixing a typo? A few lines of code? A whole new driver seems like enough to me; what about tweaking CSS? I don't know if there are rules for this.
Thanks, -chuck -- "we are plastered to the windshield of the bus that is time." - Chris