Description of problem: For RHEL 6, gdal 1.7.3-15.el6 is the latest version available in the EPEL-6 repository, whereas 1.11.1 is available in EPEL-7 and 1.11.3 is the latest upstream version. I would kindly ask for an update of GDAL in EPEL-6 to 1.11.x.
This would break various packages around GDAL, which is against the EPEL policy.
Sorry, but I'm afraid the EPEL policy does not allow for that: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL_Updates_Policy If you need it for yourself, you can try to rebuild the package from Fedora. We used to have a downstream repo doing rebuilds (ELGIS) and I left the conditionals for EPEL inside. So it's probably still possible. What is more, Pavel Lisý has a COPR repo with backports: https://copr.fedoraproject.org/coprs/pali/el6gis/builds/
Thanks for the explanation. Additional question: is anybody working to make gdal2 available in EPEL-6 (as an additional package using separate name and directories to not conflict with gdal-1.7)?
Not that I knew. I wonder if it even makes sense, with most of the underlying libraries being old too. Our manpower is very limited with GIS packaging and we greatly appreciate new volunteers.