Package {@link org.semanticweb.owl.model org.semanticweb.owl.model} provides read-only access to OWL ontologies. This package contains class and interface definitions that support manipulation of those ontologies.
The basic philosophy is that changes are encapsulated in the various subclasses of {@link org.semanticweb.owl.model.change.OntologyChange OntologyChange}, which are then passed to an implementation of {@link org.semanticweb.owl.model.change.ChangeVisitor ChangeVisitor} for execution. The visitor can choose to implement the changes as it sees fit, possibly producing more change events if necessary in order to fulfill a particular strategy (e.g. removing all subclasses of a removed class -- see {@link org.semanticweb.owl.model.change.EvolutionStrategy EvolutionStrategy}).