If anyone is curious what the Novell/openSUSE forums run on:
NNTP:
Two typhoon servers connected by a cyclone router
http://www.highwinds-software.com/
servers: forums.novell.com and forums.opensuse.org (each contains the same content)
HTTP:
Two vBulletin servers http://forums.novell.com and http://forums.opensuse.org
http://www.vbulletin.com/
The content on HTTP and NNTP is connected via a gateway we downloaded by has been custom modified by Marcel Cox to serve our needs.