Today httpunit 1.7.2 was released on maven central.
There seem to be several "unofficial" patches available see:
http://search.maven.org/#search|ga|1|httpunit
http://www.jarvana.com/jarvana/search?search_type=project&project=httpunit
What is the difference between the 1.7.2 release and the two patches that Kohsuke created? As a committer of httpunit I am willing to put these into httpunit if that makes sense.
Why not ask him? http://kohsuke.org/about/ has contact details.
The source-jars are available in the first link you provided. I have diffed them, the result is here
Looks like a very minor change.