Abstract We characterize the optimal solution to the linear programming relaxation of the standard formulation for the minimum satisfiability problem. We give a O ( n m 2 ) combinatorial algorithm to solve the fractional version of the minimum satisfiability problem optimally where n ( m ) is the number of variables (clauses). As a by-product, we obtain a 2 ( 1 − 1 ∕ 2 k ) approximation algorithm for the minimum satisfiability problem where k is the maximum number of literals in any clause.