Remaining differences between DAML+OIL and OIL

  1. RDF syntax, most notably in the use of lists in DAML+OIL.

    2.  
  2. Arbitrary RDF cannot be used in OIL ontologies; this still isn't clear for DAML+OIL ontologies.

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  3. OIL has concrete data types; concrete data types have yet to be defined for DAML+OIL.

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  4. OIL has explicit "OIL" instances; DAML+OIL relies on RDF for instances.

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  5. OIL has better "backwards compatibility" with RDFS for defined (non-primitive) concepts, as the subClassOf half of the two way implication is still accessible to RDFS agents. DAML+OIL, on the other hand, requires more complex definitions to be embedded in a boolean expressions using a list constructor which will make their meaning opaque to applications that are not "DAML+OIL-aware".

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  6. In OIL a transitive property cannot be functional, nor can it (or any of its superproperties) be used in a cardinality constraint. This restriction is required in order for class consistency to be decidable. DAML+OIL currently does not specify such a restriction.

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  7. DAML+OIL has a "versionInfo" property; OIL has a (Dublin core compliant) "container".

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  8. DAML+OIL has an explicit "samePropertyAs" property; OIL can express this using rdfs:subPropertyOf.

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  9. DAML+OIL provides both a "disjointWith" property that can be used to assert that two classes are disjoint and a "Disjoint" class that can be used to assert pairwise disjointness amongst all the classes in a list. OIL simply uses "disjoint" to assert disjointness amongst two or more classes.

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  10. DAML+OIL has no direct equivalent to OIL's "covered" axiom.  However, the same effect can be achieved using a combination of "unionOf" and "subClass".

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  11. In OIL the covered class is a subclass of the union of the covering classes whereas in DAML+OIL the covered class is exactly equal to the union of the covering classes. The converse effects can be achieved by using an "equivalent" assertion in OIL and a combination of "disjointUnionOf" and "subClass" in DAML+OIL.

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  12. OIL can assert equivalence between an arbitrary number of classes, whereas DAML+OIL only allows equivalence to be asserted between two classes. However, a corresponding effect can obviously be achieved by the use of multiple "equivalentTo" assertions.

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  13. DAML+OIL currently does not support SymmetricProperty.  However, the same effect can be achieved simply by asserting that the property is a subproperty of its inverse and vice versa (i.e., that the property and its inverse are equivalent).

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  14. OIL does not support UnambiguousProperty. However, the same effect can be achieved simply by asserting that the inverse of the property is functional.

$Revision: 1.2 $ of $Date: 2001/01/02 18:56:02 $