It doesn't appear, though, that the author was part of that team, or promised any of the money.
The author says this:
"If he'd found another way to use the money on Requests, then I would have been totally happy. I didn't have any claim on the money"
Other parts of the post do seem to indicate something isn't right. But it's not exactly as straightforward as you're saying.
Apparently, there was some sort of agreement that OP would not be disclosing his own related work independently of Kenneth. This makes him very much "part of the team" in a rather significant sense, and he does seem to share some responsibility from that POV.
Where's that? I'm unable to find anything close to that in the post.
I'm just pointing out that the sums they are talking about here are laughable. Anyone who thinks that 30k can pay anything to a team should have a look at getting a real job. Him getting paid for the bother of working as the project coordinator sounds about fair for two months part time. The rest of the contributors should have been doing the work out of interest when they have free time with nothing better to do.
I have a hell of a time explaining to people that I'm happy to contribute 1 hour 8 times to their projects for free, but if they expect 8 hours once it will cost them.