When a dependency introduces breaking changes (major versions or library renaming by forks), we upload the new version to experimental.

The list of packages we need to install from experimental is given in gitlab#Experimental_-_During_freeze_and_transitions. This list is used to create a task list at https://git.fosscommunity.in/debian-ruby/TaskTracker/issues/153

We need to make sure all reverse (build) dependencies are working with the new version.

Note: gitlab 11.8.10+dfsg-1 currently in unstable is broken beyond repair (many dependencies are already newer versions and even if we were to adapt it, the number of security issues to backport is too huge), so ignore gitlab in unstable when working on transitions.

  1. If the package has tests enabled (verify the upstream tests are run in package build/autopkgtest and not just require tests) use Packaging/ruby-team-meta-build to rebuild/run autopkgtest with the new version.

  2. If the package has tests disabled, then run the upstream testsuite (Update version in Gemfile/gemspec and run bundle install --path vendor/bundle && bundle exec rake).

  3. If upstream test suite is failing, you can open an issue upstream with the failure and ask for their help to fix it. If you can fix the failure and send a merge request, that is even better.