From experience, the problem is not than SWE don't understand the license but that they don't like to negotiate.
When seeing the license on a project they need to use, most SWE will go tell their boss "Hey we need to pay for this" and the boss will find some convoluted way to tell him "Pay? No don't wanna".
The SWE will most likely stop negotiation at that step and has two choices: Either stop using the project and find a way to do without or continue using it.
Since they actually have a enormous pill of stuff to do by yesterday and this project will save them some time they will most probably continue to use it. And tell themselves that they are personally not doing anything wrong and that's the problem of someone else at the company.
If they feel guilty enough and you are sympathetic to them, they might throw a few bucks from their own purse but I wouldn't count on it.
If they sell a product based on your project, the SWE has some leverage since someone outside the company can take a look at it, but even then that's not a guarantee.
Source: Multiple try to convince my precious boss to pay for our fucking highcharts license
When seeing the license on a project they need to use, most SWE will go tell their boss "Hey we need to pay for this" and the boss will find some convoluted way to tell him "Pay? No don't wanna".
The SWE will most likely stop negotiation at that step and has two choices: Either stop using the project and find a way to do without or continue using it.
Since they actually have a enormous pill of stuff to do by yesterday and this project will save them some time they will most probably continue to use it. And tell themselves that they are personally not doing anything wrong and that's the problem of someone else at the company.
If they feel guilty enough and you are sympathetic to them, they might throw a few bucks from their own purse but I wouldn't count on it.
If they sell a product based on your project, the SWE has some leverage since someone outside the company can take a look at it, but even then that's not a guarantee.
Source: Multiple try to convince my precious boss to pay for our fucking highcharts license