bug#22740: Freshness check blocks upgrading

[Ricardo Wurmus <ricardo.wurmus@mdc-berlin.de>]

Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:

> On Fri, Feb 19, 2016 at 06:12:09PM +0100, Andreas Enge 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 think we update packages sufficiently often and the message is rather
>> distracting.
>
> It does seem out of place while upgrading. It could be considered
> extraneous to the features of `guix refresh`.

I agree.  It seems to better fit with “guix refresh”.