Try to exlain why people should care.

doc/index.rst

-==============================================
-Buildout, an automation tool written in Python
-==============================================
+================================================================
+Buildout, an automation tool written in and extended with Python
+================================================================
+
+Buildout is a tool for automating software assembly.
+
+- Run build tools to build software.
+
+- Apply software and templates to generate configuration files and scripts.
+
+- Applicable to all software phases, from development to production deployment.
+
+- Based on **core principles**:
+
+  - Repeatability
+
+  - Componentization
+
+  - Automation
+
+Repeatability
+=============
+
+It's important that given a project configuration, two checkouts of the
+configuration in the same environment (operating system, Python
+version) should produce the same result, regardless of their history.
+
+For example, is someone has been working on a project for a long time,
+and has committed their changes to a version control system, they
+should be able tell a colleague to check out their project and run
+buildout and the resulting build should have the same result as the
+build in the original working area.
+
+Componentization
+================
+
+We believe that software should be self contained, or at least, that
+it should be possible.  The tools for satisfying the software
+responsibilities should largely reside within the software project
+itself.
+
+Some examples:
+
+- Software services should include tools for monitoring them.
+  Operations, including monitoring is a software responsibility,
+  because the creators of the software are the ones who know best how
+  to assess whether it is operating correctly.
+
+  It should be possible, when deploying production software, for the
+  software to configure the monitoring system to monitor the software.
+
+- Software should provide facilities to automate it's configuration.
+  It shouldn't be necessary for people to create separate
+  configuration whether it be in development or deployment (or stages
+  in between).
+
+Automation
+==========
+
+Software deployment should be highly automated.  It should be possible
+to checkout a project and with a single simple command (or two), get a
+working system.  This is necessary to achieve the goals of
+repeatability and componentization and generally not to waste people's
+time.
+
+Learning more
+=============
+
+Learn more:
+
+- :doc:`Getting started <getting-started>`
+
+- :doc:`Topics <topics/index>`
+
+- :doc:`Reference <reference>`
+