Josh On Design

Today I think I shall use the power of my blog for evil instead of good. Well, maybe not evil but at least for my own personal gain.

I need some forum software. After searching online for an hour or so and asking a few friends the consensus seems to be phpbb. Is this really the best of the bunch? The many forum software packages I have found all leave a great deal to be desired. They are often ugly, have extra features I don't need, are missing a few crucial features that I do need, and seem to have a plethora of config options. Surely there is something good out there I'm missing. So my question to you is: what forum software do you recommend?

Here are my constraints:

• the UI must be skinnable
• it must have true email support, where some readers can read and post via email and some readers can read and post via the website.
• it must be open source or at least free for commercial use (though i'm not averse to purchasing a support contract after evaluation)
• Being written in Java is desired but not essential. As long as it runs on Linux or Solaris I'm fine.

Any ideas?

Thanks. Josh