Ludovic Courtès (2016-02-23 00:16 +0300) wrote:

> Alex Kost <alezost@gmail.com> skribis:
>
>> Andreas Enge (2016-02-19 20:12 +0300) wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> when upgrading packages, there is a check for new GNU releases.
>>> In the presence of network problems preventing to reach the corresponding
>>> servers, the command "guix package -u" hangs indefinitely.
>>>
>>> It would be nice to add a (short) time-out to the procedure looking
>>> for updates, or better yet, to add a command line flag to turn it off:
>>> Even when the servers are reachable, checking for new versions takes
>>> a considerable amount of time that can be saved in many circumstances.
>>>
>>> Personally, I would not even mind turning this feature off completely;
>>
>> I totally agree with this!  I didn't like it since the very beginning.
>
> I agree.  I implemented it mostly for the fun of it and to demonstrate
> that we could possibly do “clever” things with access to high-level
> package objects (the command could automatically offer to use the new
> source instead of the old one), but in practice it’s been largely
> annoying.
>
> Ludo’, waiting for the patch that removes it.  :-)

Attached.  I also removed 'check-package-freshness' from (gnu packages)
as it is not used anywhere else, or should it be left?