How would you recover the funds ?
I don't see how contacting his family would work much , as I don't believe that they would know how to recover his wallet.
I'd assume it would be extremely well protected.....
Sounds like the bitcoin is lost forever...
Wouldn't it be beneficial to employ an "X of Y" system by which the the funds of each treasurer would be recoverable by the trustees ?
It sounds like a good idea to me.
According to this thread
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155000.0, the forum fund is currently held by 5 persons (incl. paraipan) and theymos.
What about putting the forum fund in several 2-of-3 addresses (3 parties being Treasurer 1, Treasurer 2 and theymos).