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In general, BusyBox is licensed under GNU GPL version 2.0, but there are
many other licenses that must also be reproduced along with binary
copies of BusyBox (e.g. 3-clause BSD and LGPL 2.1).
GPL 2.0 § 3 allows us to distribute BusyBox in object code form, subject
to the terms of §§ 1 and 2 plus some additional terms. § 1 requires
that we "conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an
appropriate copyright notice".
Under a strict reading, this means we have to accompany copies of
BusyBox in object code form with an "appropriate copyright notice".
Also under a strict reading, a notice like "BusyBox is copyrighted by
many authors between 1998-2012" may not be "appropriate".
However, the common legal theory suggests that GPL 2.0 only requires
copyright notices on copies in source code form. That is, the source
code (provided pursuant to § 3) must comply with §§ 1 and 2.
Indeed, many distributors (e.g. Fedora, Parabola, and probably all
hardware vendors) of GPL-licensed software don't include copyright
notices with all of their object code copies.
We'll at least include some general copyright notice. This copyright
notice comes from the busybox binary itself [1][2].
[1]: http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2012-July/078149.html
[2]: http://git.busybox.net/busybox/commit/?id=0e941d5
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