Inclusion of sendmail and patch

Hi,

I have only just signed up to the list so aplogies if these concerns have been asked already, I downloaded the archive but did not find the answers in their.

Anyways,  I am currently in the process of developing my own custom mini-distro for a specific project I am working on. However one of the keys goals is that I want to ensure it complies with as many standards as possible (LSB, FSH etc), rather than these changes being made at a later date (like the majority of distros are now having to do).  I feel it is also a good way to learn about Linux itself.

My queries at the moment relate to the inclusion of 2 particular commands/utilities, namely sendmail & patch.

Can anyone expand on the rational as to why sendmail is mandated by the LSB? 
On a minimal system you may not need the particular functionality of a MTA (or is it an MDA) or in the case of running sendmail (or equivilent) as a daemon a mail server.   Also surely including such as program could be a security risk.  Basic security principle includes only having the programs you require available on your system and no more don't they?  Crackers cannot exploit a program that does not exist, and sendmail doesn't have one of the best security records.

Secondly, what is the reasoning behind including patch as a core utility?
I will fully admit to not having much knowledge on this point, but is it not primarily a tool used in development, such as applying updates to source code prior to recompilation (although I believe it can be used to modify script files as well)?

Thanks to anyone who can provide me with additional reasoning on these issues.

Regards

Lee