AGPL treats "networked access" as "distribution", not "linking". With the GPL, you are required to make your modifications available as GPL if you distribute t

AGPL treats "networked access" as "distribution", not "linking". With the GPL, you are required to make your modifications available as GPL if you distribute the modified program. This creates a loophole for ASPs, which can modify GPL’d code, but because they offer it as a service (and don’t distribute the program), they don’t have to share the modifications. AGPL closes this loophole by explicitly saying that network access is considered as “distribution”. So no, you don't need to make your web application AGPL. Just like you don't make all your applications running on Linux GPL just because they happen to communicate with the kernel over system calls. Copyleft licenses are relevant only if your code is a derivative work of the original.