I
was using them, but to answer your question: no, they aren't the same as Kunena karma (although they are called 'karma').
The JomSocial karma points do not transliterate between Kunena and JS -- Kunena's karma functions thusly:
User 1 makes a very helpful (or very useless) post. User 2 gives User 1 karma (or takes it away) for his post.
Other users can now judge whether or not User 1 is helpful or not.
Unfortunately, the two are not compatible (or easily compatible), so I have disabled JS karma and am replacing it with Kunena karma and eventually AlphaUserPoints.
Give me a shout on skype if you need more info
or just post here, of course.