Mono contributor (circa 2005-2006) here. They didn't axe the entire team. Still going strong. Mono had a number of people working on different sides and only part of the team was let go as part of Attachmate restructuring of the SuSE group.
Sensationalism at its best is at work here. Attachmate/Novell laid off a lot of employees in the US today, and "internetnews.com" goes on to extrapolate that "Today Attachmate laid off an unknown number of U.S. based Novell developers that were working on the open source Mono project". Indeed, the number is unknown - it may as well be zero.
"unknown number of U.S. based Novell developers that were working on the open source Mono project." does not mean the entire team was laid off. Second, no source is cited and this is unconfirmed as of yet. I think people should calm down with the speculation until something official happens.
From an article back in 09 when Miguel joined Microsoft's Open Source Foundation:<p><i>"That’s just what I was saying Linux needed the other day: more Silverlight applications. In fact, I was discussing how promoting Silverlight development in no way whatsoever helps Microsoft lock-in, and quite the contrary actually encourages the spread of software freedom under every definition known to mankind. Because it is Microsoft that is internationally recognized for leverging its considerable power to promote user freedom and interoperability through its file formats and development technologies we absolutely need more of that being produced in the Linux world, which tends to use proprietary and obscured formats and languages"</i>