Free forum software
 

I didn't care for free forum software until now. VBB all the way. VBB isn't free. I need something legal, and free. What is good nowadays? If possible it needs to have a nice community too, who created their fair share of hacks and skins.

I hear that Simple Machines is good forum software.
http://www.simplemachines.org/

I also hear that it is more buggy than VB if you add more mods.

I would second this, unless you're willing to use beta-grade software, in which case I would reccommend phpbb3 Beta 1.

If you don't like those, you can check out this list of forum software on Wikipedia. It shows all major forum softwares, thier price, and their programming language.

also punbb is quite popular: very minimalistic

http://www.punbb.org/

Phpbb is great I find, the number of mods/hacks/skins you'll find for it are endless as well. Of course it lacks in some areas as do most free bb software, but the mods you'll find for it do add any features you should feel are lacking.

That looks to minimalistic I'll go for this one. Easy to customize, that's what I want.

phpBB is awesome due to its mod community -- until you try to upgrade a heavily modded phpBB board. Then you cry giant, sparkling tears.

Or try to create one and find most of your changes not worth manually undoing. phpBB +1