Matt Asay has the details.

In inside source at Novell just informed me that Novell laid off a considerable percentage of its workforce on Friday, suggesting that "basically an across-the-board reduction of 25 percent" had been made. The news came in too late to seek comment from Novell, but I will try to get an update over the weekend.

"[I]t doesn't excuse developing proprietary software. A desire for profit is not wrong in itself, but it isn't the sort of urgent overriding cause that could excuse mistreating others. Proprietary software divides the users and keeps them helpless, and that is wrong. Nobody should do that."

--Richard Stallman

Correction (01/02/2009): Matt has corrected his post. The layoffs were a lot smaller in terms of scale. Update will soon come.