[...] the feature will be added via a future software update (most likely OTA). Previous Android phones like the LG Eve and Samsung Galaxy Spica have included DivX playback, but this is the first time we’ve seen [...]

The plan is to upgrade to 1.6 for the eve this spring but then 2.1 will be running so the whole thing is a joke, plus its not even an over the air upgrade but hopefully with a bit more time their will be some better video players on the market

Why can’t we just rip the app / apk file from any of those builds?

No.
The Samsung Galaxy Spica is the first android phone to support Divx/Xvid video ;)
See this video for example : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6WOqNGT_Es
(Divx/Xvid demo at the end of the video)

It’s just a shame that the Eve only comes with Android 1.5 and neither LG nor Rogers have any plans to update to 1.6 let alone 2.X.

When was the last time you saw something using the divx codec? These days it’s all Xvid/x264. I’d rather see a port of VLC or something, but this is a step in the right direction at least.

Maybe. The early rumors suggested LG was the manufacturer for the GPhone.

could be LG is working with Google on the GPhone that also happen to have DivX codecs? wahhahahah

I was hoping someone would make an open source implementation of the XviD codec for Android. That would be super awesome :)