I wonder whether they implemented that strange condition of preventing the reading of the log while it is being written as an artifact of the fact the way your SAS jobs are being run, with all of the logs are being directed to the same place. Instead of being directed back to the filesystem used by the owner of the program being run, which would presumably already have the proper access roles in place so there is no need worry about the wrong people reading the file while it is being written.
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