I've been working on Octave 5.1 builds for Rawhide and EPEL-7 here:
https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/g/scitech/octave5.1/
Build status notes: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a-cjNm1AB2ZWpAdGwE0zp_vmiyJeKGGkB3Bn...
I'm pretty close to updating octave in rawhide proper, but want to see if a couple issues are fixed first.
Testing is appreciated. I'll also be building an octave 5.1 module as well once I've updated octave in rawhide.