Comment # 1 on bug 1177289 from Dirk Mueller

So I looked a bit at it, and it seems a problem with kubernetes client 1.19
from factory: 

testing with the kubernetes1.18-client:

$ kubectl1.18 version --client
Client Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"18", GitVersion:"v1.18.9",
GitCommit:"94f372e501c973a7fa9eb40ec9ebd2fe7ca69848", GitTreeState:"clean",
BuildDate:"2020-09-17T00:00:00Z", GoVersion:"go1.14.9", Compiler:"gc",
Platform:"linux/amd64"}


testing with the kubernetes1.19-client:

$ kubectl1.19 version --client
Client Version: version.Info{Major:"", Minor:"", GitVersion:"v1.19.2",
GitCommit:"$Format:%H$", GitTreeState:"", BuildDate:"2020-09-17T00:00:00Z",
GoVersion:"go1.15.2", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"linux/amd64"}


interestingly, "short" still works:

$ kubectl1.19 version --short 
Client Version: v1.19.2
Server Version: v1.19.2
$ kubectl1.19 version --short --client
Client Version: v1.19.2