Not yet forever I guess. Have they completely given up all hope? In the first case, there are still two last attempts. In the second case, last I heard the man was still looking for ways to locate that multimillion-dollar hard drive.
If in the end they both lost all those coins, I thank them for the donations. That's more than 15,000
BTC. A big donation for everybody.
Lost coins only make everyone else's coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone.
On the same thread where Satoshi mentioned this, Gavin Andresen, the man to whom Satoshi entrusted his/her/their creation before he/she/they left, had this prophetic thing to say:
And the more valuable they become, the more careful people will be not to lose them.
It's unfortunate both men got those coins much earlier. Mr. Thomas wouldn't have lost that password; Mr. Howells wouldn't have accidentally thrown away that hard drive, had those coins were already worth millions.