Probably was just a mistake, and has now been fixed, as the link structure on the page now points to https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html (note the 3.0 addition).
It's indicative of the rift between FSF and Linux developers that the GPL v2 is on the "Old Licenses" page and "kept here for reference." I'll understate this; Linux is a fairly important project that still uses the GPL v2 license.
Q: do you agree that you undermine GPL version 3 and how can I get you to stop
Linus: what
Q: how can we get you to stop
Linus: oh I hate GPL version 3 undermined it on purpose I actually thought the GPL version 3 extensions were horrible. I understand why people would want to do them but I think it should have been a completely new license. My argument for liking version 2 - and I still think version 2 is a great license - was that I give you source code you give me your changes back we're even. Right - that's that's my take on GPL version 2 it's that simple and version 3 extended that in ways that I personally am really uncomfortable with; namely I give you source code that means that if you use that source code you can't use it on your device unless you follow my rules and to me that's that's a violation of everything version 2 stood for ...
Tiviozation is specifically called out 2:33.
Driver compatibility and one way license changes preventing reincorporation of code at 3:30
Linus chose not to try to define "general purpose computer", Stallman's threshold for what kind of hardware should run Free(Libre) software.
Stallman, usually quite orthodox, had to carve out "general purpose computers" from "legitmiate appliances". He decided that Tivo is a "general purpose computer" but a microwave is not. Linus drew the line at the software/hardware boundary.
Affero GPL is much more interesting, as it closes the "someone else's machine" loophole for the "distribution" trigger. This is more extreme than Tivoization.
And because Linus just does not give a fuck. He is an engineer, not a politician, and the GPLv2 to this day is serving its purpose, and Linux‘ success proves him right.
Its success proves that GPL v3 was not needed to spur such success. That's not a judgement on whether v3 is "better" by some measure or other. It's a realistic measure that the modifications in v3 weren't needed for Linux to continue existing and flourishing.
Unless Linus and the team want to re-write a bunch of GPLv2 kernel code (and modules), they are stuck with GPLv2 whether they want to change it or not. Linux is now over 30 and some of the original authors are no longer here to authorize a change in their copyright license.
On that page it says: "We normally use the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL), specifying version 3 or any later version, but occasionally we use other free software licenses."
As of 2023-05-05 16:54 UTC, it looks like all the links are fixed. Maybe they hastily reverted to an old site version? It looked like they had moved to a new URL structure, but not any more.
Probably was just a mistake, and has now been fixed, as the link structure on the page now points to https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html (note the 3.0 addition).
The original link submitted here (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html) also forwards to that URL now.