GConf dependency? (was Camp KDE: Geolocation)

Actually I never understood this "problem". When asking on a KDE mailinglist where this was discussed I didn't even get a reply.

gconf, GSettings or whether is a service side dependency right?
How would any client be affected by the service's choice of dependencies?

Same for the dbus-glib dependency, any client will use whatever D-Bus implementation they are usually using.