Whatever their reason is, it is certainly not a technical reason e.g. inability to write the client. It's a choice they have made.
> their reaction shouldn't be lawsuits, it should be "hire this guy/gal"
For building a webview wrapper with nw.js? It cost me 5 mins to build mine... It's an "app" that will never leave my desktop and I still give Jan Koum credit in the About section... xD
http://i.imgur.com/BXu4F7M.png
Let's hope the WhatsApp team won't be too harsh with the guy. Clearly it's been an ingenuous move by a young dev. Hopefully they'll come to terms just taking it down or renaming completely the project.
> Even if it's less functional.
Having something with missing functionality and/or bugs isn't always better than having nothing if you look at it from a marketing perspective. I agree that hiring someone talented who seems to like your brand to work on their extensions of your product would usually be a good investment, just not always.
I don't see why so many popular mobile apps seem to refuse to have web-versions for use on other platforms. Even if it's less functional.