The CEO of Red Hat, Jim Whitehurst, is scheduled to deliver a keynote address at the Open Source Business Conference this week.

At a pre-conference activity last night he encouraged the various open source vendors to make the most of the current economic climate and get out there and start knocking on doors, referring to his own recent experience as an example.

There are companies we’ve been trying to set up meetings with for years that are all of a sudden calling us up and saying ‘We need to talk.’ The more desperate the industry, the more interested people are.

I have to say that I agree. While writing a paper on the topic a couple of years ago, I discovered that one of the biggest struggles potential customers have with the whole concept of open source is actually one of the biggest selling points the movement has – the cost (or lack thereof). Customers believe that the lack of fees is related to a lack of quality in the product, meaning a lot more effort to maintain.

Now that the shrinking IT budget is more important than ever, it’s time for open source vendors to show just how capable their products are compared to those expensive, off-the-shelf solutions that are costing more in annual maintenance fees than the original price of the license.

If the vendors can clearly demonstrate the business value of using their products, they stand a greater chance of getting inside for the long term. This could be a real turning point for the open source movement, but we need to act now – the opportunity won’t be there forever.