BuddyPress.org

I think that a savvy plugin-author would integrate BP with another opensource platform like phpBB. That way the energies of the phpBB team would be harnessed to BP use.

It’s kind of like horses and a wagon. phpBB is the horse and BP is the wagon. There’s no need to breed, grow, and train a horse from birth for your wagon. Just buy one that someone else has raised and hitch it to your wagon.

But all of that is much easier said than done. @dennis_h, are you a coder?