HTTP Basic authentication for open_uri

Can somebody apply the following patch for open_uri in order to enable 
HTTP basic authentication:

RCS file: /src/ruby/lib/open-uri.rb,v
retrieving revision 1.29
diff -u -r1.29 open-uri.rb
--- lib/open-uri.rb     8 Feb 2005 03:06:29 -0000       1.29
+++ lib/open-uri.rb     8 Feb 2005 18:13:43 -0000
@@ -548,7 +548,9 @@
        require 'net/http'
        resp = nil
        Net::HTTP.start(self.host, self.port) {|http|
-        http.request_get(uri.to_s, header) {|response|
+        request = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri.to_s, header)
+        request.basic_auth self.user, self.password if self.user
+        http.request(request) {|response|
            resp = response
            if options[:content_length_proc] && Net::HTTPSuccess === resp
              if resp.key?('Content-Length')

That enables the following usage:

open('http://user:pwd@homename') do |f|
...
end

Right now I have to do this hack:

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

require 'open-uri'
require 'date'
require 'rexml/document'

# == HACK ==

module URI
   class HTTP
     def direct_open(buf, options)
       options.merge!('Authorization' => auth_token) if self.user
       proxy_open(buf, request_uri, options)
     end

     def auth_token
       'Basic ' + ["#{user}:#{password}"].pack('m').delete("\r\n")
     end
     private :auth_token
   end
end

# == END OF HACK ==

user  = ARGV[0] || 'user'
pwd   = ARGV[1] || 'password'
dt    = ARGV[3] || Date.today.strftime('%Y-%m-%d')

open("http://#{user}:#{pwd}@del.icio.us/api/posts/get?dt=#{dt}") do |f|
   doc = REXML::Document.new(f)
   doc.elements.each('//post') do |post|
     puts "#{post.attribute('description')}: #{post.attribute('href')}"
   end
end

Cheers,
Kent.