Extract from http://gdal.org/ :
GDAL is a translator library for raster and vector geospatial data
formats that is released under an X/MIT style Open Source license by
the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. As a library, it presents a
single raster abstract data model and single vector abstract data model
to the calling application for all supported formats. It also comes
with a variety of useful command line utilities for data translation
and processing
GDAL upstream ticket:
https://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/ticket/6883
Even Rouault