Tags that identify certain information within a documentation block or Doccomment, introducing a context to the data, and help self documentation tools separate the information.
In PHP for example, we can use the phpDocumentor tool, which will generate a document with all class, function and variable comments added to the source code.
A list of tags (with description) can be found in the phpDocumentor documentation: https://www.phpdoc.org/docs/latest/references/phpdoc/tags/index.html
In the text you provided, this block is featuring the Phpmailer package, created by Andy Prevost, Marcus Bointon and Jim Jagielski, with the copyrights being held by Jim Jagielski from 2010 to 2012 and held by Andy Prevost from 2004 to 2009, at the end is informed the license type of this package.
The tags and documentation do not influence anything in the code and can be deleted, its usefulness is only to allow the understanding of that piece of code.
If you use an IDE to develop code, the documentation blocks will be displayed when using classes, methods and variables by the system.
https://www.phpdoc.org/, https://www.phpdoc.org/docs/latest/index.html
– bfavaretto
Related: Phpdoc - What is, what is useful and how to use?
– rray
That’s right dup right there... @rray
– MagicHat
@Magichat, your question seems to be duplicated, but her scope is much larger. The indicated question explicitly speaks of documentation, while your question questions the general scope of annotations, which can be used for more purposes, such as data validation and ORM integration. See my answer to better understand.
– jlHertel