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Re:French Court Issues Damages Award for Violation of GPL by bee_rider on Monday March 04, 2024 @11:20AM (#39592142)
“Will he nill he…” huh, I wonder if that’s the etymology of the modern expression. “Willy-nilly” just seems like a nonsense phrase. “Will he nill he” could be read as “will he or will he not,” right? It seems like only a couple short conceptual hops to go from “whether or not he decides to do something” to “look at all the random things he could do.”
Re:French Court Issues Damages Award for Violation of GPL by DiggyJohnson on Monday March 04, 2024 @01:55PM (#39594398)
I largely agree with you, but I can imagine a scenario where there is some connection to "Will he? Won't he?" semantically.
Re:French Court Issues Damages Award for Violation of GPL by eru on Monday March 04, 2024 @09:31PM (#39598783)
> Will he nill he…” huh, I wonder if that’s the etymology of the modern expression.

Well, that's at least what the internet told me, last time I checked.

Re:French Court Issues Damages Award for Violation of GPL by bee_rider on Monday March 04, 2024 @11:03PM (#39599290)
I suppose I should have looked it up! For some reason I just looked up the definition of nill and tried to work out a plausible folk etymology from there.