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This is my opinion:

  1. Wireshark is GPL v2, all sources available, does not link with any non-free software.
  2. Wireshark is linked with the WinPcap SDK, that defines a binary interface that both WinPcap and npcap offer, thus Wireshark does not depend on any non-free software
  3. There is an exception in the npcap licence that allows npcap distribution by the Wireshark project as part of the Wireshark installer.
  4. At runtime, Wireshark loads the user-mode portion of a capture library that supports the defined binary interface.

The fact that the user-mode portion may come from non-free software doesn't invalidate the Wireshark GPL2 licence, in a similar way to a Linux kernel loading non-free modules

This is my opinion:

  1. Wireshark is GPL v2, all sources available, does not link with any non-free software.
  2. Wireshark is linked with the WinPcap SDK, that defines a binary interface that both WinPcap and npcap offer, thus Wireshark does not depend on any non-free software
  3. There is an exception in the npcap licence that allows npcap distribution by the Wireshark project as part of the Wireshark installer.
  4. At runtime, Wireshark loads the user-mode portion of a capture library that supports the defined binary interface.

The fact that the user-mode portion may come from non-free software doesn't invalidate the Wireshark GPL2 licence, in a similar way to a Linux kernel loading non-free modules modules.

For parties other than the Wireshark project, the npcap licence may prevent distribution, that's a matter for those parties and the npcap project to resolve.