Rebase a specified branch with --rebasebranch BRANCHNAME
rake/gempackagetask is deprecated, use rubygems/package_task
Fixes problems with untrusted certificate and password protected repositories
Remove --local option from git-config call

Remove --local option from git-config call to prevent a break on  Debian Squeeze systems where --local is not yet available.
Fixed 'git config --local' to work on git versions < 1.7.4.