Ilfac Guilfanov, who wrote the patch, is somewhat well known as the author of Interactive Disassembler Pro. According to the f-secure weblog, Guilfanov is "arguably one of the best low-level Windows experts in the world."
He is not making money from his patch, but if it causes problems, his reputation will certainly suffer. Steve Gibson of Gibson Research Center, a long time programmer and all-around old computer pro, has examined Guilfanov's code and even spoke with Guilfanov to help him modify the code for Windows 2000. Gibson is very impressed with the quality of the patch. Programmer/author Tom Liston of SANS says that he has gone through the patch and found that it does only what it is supposed to do.
Obviously Guilfanov's patch is riskier than Microsoft's patch will be, but if Microsoft is really going to wait until the 10th without even releasing even a beta patch...
Hmmmm. I'm not so sure.
Gibson is a good guy, but his efforts to improve Windows are quixotic.