Hi SAS Community!
The idea for this ballot is to include SAS Packages Framework macros (https://github.com/yabwon/SAS_PACKAGES/blob/main/SPF/SPFinit.md) into Base SAS and Viya.
Mature open source communities (e.g. R, Python, or TeX groups) allow users to share code (even complex one) in an easy "transportable" form of packages. I believe that the SAS Community is also one that could use such form of "code exchange". The SAS Packages Framework is a set of macros which allow you to build SAS Packages. (The framework is open source and MIT licensed)
To build or use a package macros from the framework need to be available in the SAS session. So now it requires additional effort for both developers and users who want to work with SAS Packages - the framework has to be downloaded and included for a SAS session. Why no add the framework macros to the SAS deployment so both developers and users could focus on making and using SAS Packages rather than on setting up "environment" to do so?
Articles describing the idea are here and here
Video introduction to the idea can be found here and here.
All the best
Bart
