If software vendors are making publically available a url from which to download packages, then as far as I'm concerned they can pound sand. What does it matter if I fetch its contents via a shell script or a browser?

Providing a script to download binaries from the site is a completely different thing from re-hosting and redistributing binaries without permission. I don't use chocolatey and have no idea what the background is to this story, so don't take this as a defense of their actions.