A number of other people have been concerned as well & have emailed him, with initial responses, but there's been nothing since & I know at least one person did do an obituary search, but so far it has been complete "radio" silence.

God knows it's easy to lose a domain to a squatter - I've dealt with companies that have had it happen to them (I'm a Mac IT Consultant in my "paying" life :)) so I can see it happening to an individual, but it does seem odd that A) he wouldn't just do what I did, or B) ask for help, in which case I suspect tech people would fall over themselves to help him.

Hell, he resurfaces, I'd host and maintain his site for free if he asked, just as thanks for the site itself. As you note - being willing to share the work he has done and ask for nothing in return...he's the epitome of the hacker in my book (that's a good thing).

I hope he's OK, too.