Copyright statements are pretty complicated, and I am not sure you are right. I am afraid I can't take your advice ;-)

You can change the code. But the copyright statement is pretty clear that you can't remove the copyright. And, past a point, you can't change the copyright, or it's meaningless. Consider the simplest case: change the copyright to say V3 instead of V2. Would that be acceptable?

Generally you're supposed to take the text in the copyright as given and not change it. Certainly older coreboot code with US Gov't copyright made that clear.

I've had it stated pretty clearly to me by people who are lawyers that it's a very bad idea to start rearranging copyright statements. 

At the very least, it's going to upset people you don't want to upset; why do that?

ron