It's funny how when you do a ton of work for free and release it as a product, people feel they are entitled to it.
I worked on a comparatively small part of the mod, and I spent 6 weeks, at least 8 hours a day, for absolutely nothing. A game design intern (the lowest on the game development totem pole) would have gotten at least $3,000 for that work. Now imagine how much work Zbyl, Stoney, Hassat Hunter should have made...
So all this work, for no compensation, and now suddenly everyone else is entitled to play this mod by downloading it however they want, and we have to make it available to them on their terms, or else.
Steam in a nutshell.