This directory is read-only. It contains the service repository (actually one list of services that do not need the network and one list of services that can only be started after the network is up), and an image of the tmpfs that it copied as-is at boot-time (during stage 1 init). This directory is only used at boot-time, it is never written to (the service directories are copied as-is to /service during stage 2 init).