Description of problem: Octave is currently on version 8.4 Fedora rawhide is on 8.4 , Epel 9 contains version 7.3 but Epel 8 is still on version 5.2
Major version updates of octave change module API and break ABI. They are not allowed in EPEL. However, I do try to make an effort to have some newer versions available in COPR, see: https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/g/scitech/octave8/ https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/g/scitech/octave8.1/ But this is a best effort.
If I'm reading that right, the builds in https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/g/scitech/octave8.1/ failed for EPEL8 (except on one processor, ppc64le -- weird), but as of a few hours ago, the builds in https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/g/scitech/octave8/ are Octave 8.4.0, including for EPEL8 and EPEL9. So, that should do it. But as Orion said, in EPEL we're not allowed[1] to just bump packages up across major versions, like going from Octave 5.2 to 8.4 (or even 7.anything or 6.anything). The whole point of a "stable release" distro like RHEL is, other than required security fixes and absolutely unavoidable bug fixes, everything remains consistent with how it was released. No major upgrades, no surprises. To be honest, I'm amazed Octave 8 even builds in EPEL8. I'd have thought it would require at least one of its dependencies be at a newer version than what's available there. So, color me impressed. (That outdated-dependencies issue is also covered in the doc I linked to, in the section immediately following the linked one.) But, yeah, unfortunately I think this one has to be a WONTFIX due to policy restrictions. [1]: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/epel/epel-policy/#guidelines_and_backgrounds_for_this_policy
Thanks for that guys, I appreciate you taking the time to explain.