I see in changelog: * Apr 13 2005 Thomas Woerner <twoerner> 8.13.4-1 - new version 8.13.4 - added requires for the sendmail base package in sendmail-cf, sendmail-devel and sendmail-doc Why was it done? I was able to install sendmail-devel package w/o installing sendmail in RHEL 4. I need sendmail-devel because it includes libmilter, and I use postfix with milters. I don't see why sendmail-cf and sendmail-doc should require sendmail base package too.
This has been done to be consistent to other devel and doc packages. There should not be a package without any dependency. There were also requests to add these dependencies. You can install sendmail without breaking your postfix configuration. Closing as not a bug.