[dragonwriter]

Omitting the "or any later" clause doesn't freeze the project license for ever, it just prevents the terms on which the software is used from being changed out from under copyright owners (including the project owners) arbitrarily at the whim of whoever is currently in charge of the FSF.

The project still has control of the license it offers the project under; of course, if it depends on software from anyone else that is on limited-to-GPLv2 terms (which lots of projects are), it can't change to any other license (whether GPLv3 or non-GPL) without either replacing the outside software or getting the copyright owner to agree to different licensing terms.

The project at issue here appears to use GPLv2-only because they are dependent on other software that is GPLv2-only.