[[[
Naive way to prevent VC from contacting remote repository when saving
a file.  *** FOR DISCUSSION ONLY; DO NOT APPLY THIS PATCH ***

* lisp/vc/vc-hooks.el 
  (vc-state-refresh): Take new 'local flag, pass it along to
    `vc-call-backend'... But this is problematic because
    it probably doesn't mean the right thing for backends 
    other than SVN.
  (vc-after-save): Pass new flag to `vc-state-refresh'.
]]]

diff --git a/lisp/vc/vc-hooks.el b/lisp/vc/vc-hooks.el
index 61918c9..03a45eb 100644
--- a/lisp/vc/vc-hooks.el
+++ b/lisp/vc/vc-hooks.el
@@ -486,11 +486,13 @@ status of this file.  Otherwise, the value returned is one of:
 	(when backend
           (vc-state-refresh file backend)))))
 
-(defun vc-state-refresh (file backend)
-  "Quickly recompute the `state' of FILE."
+(defun vc-state-refresh (file backend &optional local)
+  "Quickly recompute the `state' of FILE.
+Optional argument LOCAL means compute state in a way that does
+not involve contacting any remote repository."
   (vc-file-setprop
    file 'vc-state
-   (vc-call-backend backend 'state file)))
+   (vc-call-backend backend 'state file local)))
 
 (defsubst vc-up-to-date-p (file)
   "Convenience function that checks whether `vc-state' of FILE is `up-to-date'."
@@ -661,7 +663,7 @@ Before doing that, check if there are any old backups and get rid of them."
       (if (equal (vc-file-getprop file 'vc-checkout-time)
 		 (nth 5 (file-attributes file)))
 	  (vc-file-setprop file 'vc-checkout-time nil))
-      (if (vc-state-refresh file backend)
+      (if (vc-state-refresh file backend 'local)
 	  (vc-mode-line file backend)))
      ;; If we saved an unlocked file on a locking based VCS, that
      ;; file is not longer up-to-date.