If you look at http://nagoya.apache.org, you'll see that there was an experiment to use Jive forums at one point (when it was Open Source), because they can be tied into the mailing list system. There may also be a news interface. Some of that is under discussion. The key issue is tying into the mailing list as the core mechanism. NNTP allows that, as did Jive. I have not yet looked at Meinds, which is a descendent of the original Open Source Jive.
--- Noel P.S. Please change your e-mail client to post only plain text e-mail, not HTML e-mail.