I heard we are getting new forum software but would like to know when and what platform.
Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave.—Karl Kraus.
See
http://buddypress.org/
and
http://bbpress.org/
As far as when... we're not sure yet. WordPress 3.0 just came out, and that's what we were waiting for. Of course if someone were to volunteer their help, progress would be much accelerated :-)