My druthers would be to have an IETF policy explicitly saying
that the first choice is to use unencumbered technology if it
can be made to work, second choice is encumbered but
royalty-free technology, and last choice is "fair and reasonable
licence terms" (or whatever the equivalent correct legal wording
might be for that last).
and if one solution is 120% better technically than another, but has a
RAND license associated with it? What if it's 170% better?
working groups make trade-offs all the time between simplicity, functionality,
and so on. licensing is another cost. given the amount of traffic on this
topic, it appears that licensing is a very heavy cost. this may provide an
answer to your question...
/mtr