I will be taking over the active development and maintaining of an R package on CRAN (of course with approval of the current maintainer). What are the necessary steps to make this happen / Should we proceed as follows?: (I assume only the current maintainer has the right to submit an updated version of the package, right?)
Will that turn me into the active maintainer of the package?
edit: To clarify, I currently not an author listed in the package.
Speaking from experience, before CRAN will accept an update with a different maintainer, they will want to receive an e-mail from the current maintainer explaining the intention to change maintainers. This e-mail must come from the e-mail account listed in the DESCRIPTION file.
After CRAN has received that e-mail, you may edit the DESCRIPTION file to change the maintainer name and contact information, then submit to CRAN. I would include an explanation of the change of maintainer in your submission notes, as well as a reference to the e-mail sent to CRAN.