However, all the concerns about licensing should raise red flags about your system. Yes, there are times that having something require licensing is okay or even desired. But you should always see it as a truly huge risk and one that you have to consider carefully. Licensing makes the most sense higher up the stack. For example, the application itself is the most likely object to justify licensing. The cabling is the least. Imagine how ridiculous it would be if your rack, desks, and cables required that you have a special license for each use!! It would be insane and you'd never stand for it (you might have to stand if your chair was licensed only to someone else's butt.)
Your hypervisor and operating system are closer to the cables, rack and desk than they are to the application in this way. These aren't components that you want to have at risk due to a need for licensing. Sometimes you have to, but it is rare and a "have to" would only be caused by an application and if an application puts you in that position for many companies that alone is a reason to question the viability of the developers behind said application.
At a minimum, something like ESXi introduces totally unwarranted complexity and risk and is something that can be quietly, transparently, removed and fixed during this process.