Fitter Stoke:
While I think there's a lot to learn from dependent origination, especially as it applies to practice, I would hesitate to say there is any easy or direct translation from DO to the determinism/free will debate. I don't think you can assume that just because someone is talking about determinism/free will, the concepts map on smoothly to how people understood nature 2,500 years ago.
I'm sympathetic to the above argument although I wouldn't say it's the mapping that is the problem but the context. If we're getting scholarly then we can only talk about dependant origination within the context of a specific text. Like if we read Nagarjuna we can try and see what he means by dependant origination and then after that we can try and map it. Although we might first want to compare what Nagarjuna says about it in contrast to other Buddhists from the same period or later. I'm guessing what Nagarjuna says about DO is different to what Sautrantika scholars might say since a lot of Nagarjuna's work is criticisms of Sautrantika ideas. Then after doing all that we can map to more modern concepts.
Now I personally don't think it's that important in terms of practice (ending suffering) because while I think DO maps pretty well to some western ideas. Non-self and emptiness do not. Since no one here holds the same view of self that the denizens of the Indian sub-continent did 2,500 years ago I think both concepts are stupid dead ends (non-self more so than emptiness which is just translated really badly imo).
On the other hand, what I think is irrelevant, if it helps you end suffering then it's good.