The author mentioned this exact problem. Quoting:

> There was a problem that I noticed right away, though: this text was from the GPL v3, not the GPL v2. In my original request I had never mentioned the GPL version I was asking about.

>The original license notice makes no mention of GPL version either. Should the fact that the license notice contained an address have been enough metadata or a clue, that I was actually requesting the GPL v2 license? Or should I have mentioned that I was seeking the GPLv2 license?

This is seemingly a problem with the GPL text itself, in that it doesn't mention which license version to request when you mail the FSF.

A Sid Caesar skit showed doughboys celebrating and one shouted "World War 1 is over!"... when they made GPLv2 maybe they didn't anticipate creating future versions (although yeah, if you're already on v2 you should foresee that).

Well to be fair, that's not the full license notice, that's only the last paragraph. There should a couple more above that one and the first paragraph says the version of GPL in use. That said I think the license notice is also just a suggested one, it's not required that you use that _exact_ text.