OWL Lite

The syntactically simplest of the three sub-languages of OWL. It is intended to be used in situations where only a simple class hierarchy and simple constraints are needed. For example, it is envisioned that OWL-Lite will provide a quick migration path for existing thesauri and other conceptually simple hierarchies.

An owl class (owl:class) is defined as subclass of rdfs class (rdfs:class); not all classes of RDF document can be an instances or subclasses of an owl class (owl:class); as a result, a valid rdf document cannot be considered as a valid OWL Lite or DL document. It is different from OWL DL in lower level language details and constraints.